A selection of websites that refute the flood of misinformation and disinformation going around, especially in politics. by Dan Clore
(libertarian)
Tuesday, June 24, 2008
Misinformation and Disinformation
by Dan Clore
These websites provide a place to check the accuracy of dubious claims. I would welcome suggested additions to the list.
Of course, one should read these websites with appropriate skepticism, as well.
How to Identify Misinformation Some comic relief from the Bush administration, including its own good wallop of misinformation. By coincidence, all of the websites "known for spreading false stories" listed are highly critical of the Bush administration.
(The Obama administration has delected this, but Wayback still has it.)
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Posted By: C. Al Currier
Date: 2008-06-24 11:40:56
Comic Relief: US State Department (link #6)
RE: 'Urban Legends'
--from their website:
"Another September 11 urban legend is that an undamaged Bible was found in the midst of the crash site at the Pentagon. In reality, it was a dictionary. But, if a Bible had survived unscathed, that would have seemed much more significant, and been seen by many as a sign of divine intervention."
I'm so glad that that the State Department had time to 'bust' another 'urban legend'. If we just had more taxes and funding for the government, maybe the State Department could start 'busting' rural legends too!
I would appreciate any other suggestions for the list, which could be expanded.
It is notable that while the liberal/progressive websites are generally useful and reliable, the conservative/rightist websites that purport to act as media watchdogs are themselves purveyers of precisely the sort of misinformation and disinformation that needs to be combatted. If I knew of a conservative website that acts like FAIR or Media Matters but from a different viewpoint, I would have gladly added it to the list. But there doesn't seem to be one.
Here's an abridged listing of some of the sites I frequent when looking for data.
SourceWatch, and its subportal, Congresspedia It uses the wikimedia codebase (wikipedia), but the hosting org, Center For Media and Demiocracy, did not let themselves fall into the commons trap when they first began to see the wiki being used for inserting disinformation. It is biased, but the bias is not that the provided data is errant. They have faily strict guidelines requiring proper sourcing for the published content. the bias is found in the choice of topics, bcause most of the active members of the site, could be properly identified as being to the left of center and editing choices are self-decided by the ocntributing members.
Congresspedia is an excellent jump-off point when searching for data regarding Federal Politicians
CSPAN's Congressional Chronicle It offers free viewing access to any spoken content in the Senate or House which was over 30 seconds in duration. They provide a decent searching interface along with it.
Library of Congress' Thomas A complete Federal Legislative Record. Acessing the data initially can be a bit daunting to the mewbies though.
The U.S. Government Printing Office's: GPO Access - A-Z Resource List A major source of publicly available official government records, and even though the government is a disinformation speweere, at least one can acquire it at its originating source. It is the authoritative source for The Congressional Record, although it served off of WAIS servers, which can make data acess problematical for persons who do not understand pre-Search Engine arcane search methodologies.
Congressional Research Service (CRS) Products. This is a givernment funded service created to aid the legislative branch by providing detailed research papers on any relevant topic requesting by Congressiona Member. The CRS is fiercely non-partisan, and prides itself on its high quality work. Their products, although generally not classified, are not released to the general public, and up until a few years ago, only a few non-governmental organisations actively sought to acquire them.
Open CRS Open CRS has full mirrors of the following CRS Report Archive sites:
The Constitution Society provides online acces to many of the primary documenet of Western Civilization's Jurisprudence
Resource AShelf and its companion site: Docu Ticker Blogs maintained by libraians which posts daily lists of a wide variety of web available research sources and documents. Both sites offer multiple RSS feeds for ease of scanning new posts.
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