What is spin to you?
Do you know it when you see it? There’s the obvious stuff like when a company writes a press release that deliberately only gives their own shiny, happy perspective on a controversial issue. But wait, there’s more. Like when people post comments with statements that look like facts, but are really fiction; or when a reporter lays subjective opinions alongside objective observations. In short, anything that you think is misleading, unfair, incomplete, or simply not true is spin.
We all have our own definitions of spin. Below is how we call it, but ultimately it is up to you. If it looks like spin to you, then mark it. To start, here are some examples of how we define spin:
Our Three O Nos
Opinion
Some call it color. We call it opinion. Whenever a reporter, blogger, commenter, or marketer uses words that can’t be proven or substantiated, that’s opinion. Adjectives, adverbs, superlatives and descriptive verbs (ask your 3rd grade English teacher) all make for an interesting read—we’re not saying there’s no place for editorials or opinions—but when opinions are dressed up as fact, we've gotta call it. Is the author misleading the readers?
Example 1: Opinion in personal finance news
Example 2: Opinion in U.S. news
Example 3: Opinion in political news
Omission
Practiced by teenagers everywhere, omission is as common as a cold. The author has conveniently left out a critical piece of information. It could be that Jimmy’s parents are not home, or that “We’re number one” because of a monopoly or exclusive contract. In either case, there’s key information missing which leads the reader (or parent) to a misguided conclusion. Sometimes facts are omitted on purpose, sometimes they’re unknown or forgotten. In either case, it’s your job to spot it.
Example 1: Omission in science news
Example 2: Omission in an environmental blog
Example 3: Omission in a technology magazine
Obfuscation
Slander, errors, made up stuff. We lump all of it here under obfuscation. Are the “facts” just wrong? Is the author being purposely misleading or flat out lying? Does he or she rely on a lot of unnamed sources or statistics that seem to come out of thin air? We call that obfuscation. It’s not always with malicious intent, but there’s a heck of a lot of it on the Web and we’ve got to clean it up.
Example 1: Obfuscation in economic news
Example 2: Obfuscation in technology report
Example 3: Obfuscation in online news column
Do you see it differently? Is there a particularly nasty genre of spin out there that you think other SpinSpotters need to know about? Send it here.
