Truth Facts

Welcome to Truth Facts, a collection of information graphics that poke fun at societal quirks and everyday absurdities through charts and graphs. Danish writer Mikael Wulff and cartoon artist Anders Morgenthaler have taken the internet by storm with their humorous and perceptive infographics that turn commonplace phenomena into clever commentary. In distilling keen observations about universal experiences into elegant charts and graphs, Truth Facts gets to the heart of the paradoxical and wonderful world we all share, and puts modern reality into perspective in a funny and visceral way. These simple, colorful graphics explore societal quirks and everyday oddities, such as what happens when you call customer service (anything but service), when banks are open (only when you’re at work), the biggest lies on the internet (“LOL”), and much more. Playfully teasing readers even as it explores themes like perception vs. reality, this compendium of life’s truthiest facts prods us to laugh at ourselves, own up to our shortfalls, accept the strangeness of the world we live in, and continue on—happier and more connected to one another than ever before.

An A-to-Z compendium that finds the wonder in information overload. The Truth About Facts makes intimate the seeming noise of information and facts by using the tradition of the alphabet book to get back to basics: to make room for wonder, devotion, and a reinvigorated role for poetry in both quick and methodological thought. Vautour leads his readers on an info-drenched, abecedarian jaunt that is both tongue-in-cheek and unquestionably earnest. Ranging from topics as assorted as Brazil Nuts and Juggling to meditations on Rememoration and the Zodiac, The Truth About Facts moves between the surety of aphorism and the anxieties of critique. "The Truth about Facts subtly and satisfyingly illuminates already existing connections in the seemingly far-flung."--Canadian Literature "If, like me, you find yourself randomly clicking through Wikipedia articles late into the night, you will love this delightful ramble through the facts."--Sachiko Murakami

How bad is the problem of media bias? The answer can be summed up in a few words: President Donald J. Trump. Whether you love him or hate him, there’s no question that Trump gained a huge amount of support for his willingness to criticize the media in harsh and unsparing terms. The media seems baffled by the fact that it’s lost the trust of the American people. It has responded by being extraordinarily defensive and doubling down on histrionic attacks. However, the American system has always depended on a strong and trusted media to hold those in power accountable. Journalist Mollie Hemingway looks at the impressive list of media failure that led us to this unique moment and asks, Is it possible for the media to recover its credibility before it’s too late?

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • From the Pulitzer Prize–winning critic comes an impassioned critique of America’s retreat from reason We live in a time when the very idea of objective truth is mocked and discounted by the occupants of the White House. Discredited conspiracy theories and ideologies have resurfaced, proven science is once more up for debate, and Russian propaganda floods our screens. The wisdom of the crowd has usurped research and expertise, and we are each left clinging to the beliefs that best confirm our biases. How did truth become an endangered species in contemporary America? This decline began decades ago, and in The Death of Truth, former New York Times critic Michiko Kakutani takes a penetrating look at the cultural forces that contributed to this gathering storm. In social media and literature, television, academia, and politics, Kakutani identifies the trends—originating on both the right and the left—that have combined to elevate subjectivity over factuality, science, and common values. And she returns us to the words of the great critics of authoritarianism, writers like George Orwell and Hannah Arendt, whose work is newly and eerily relevant. With remarkable erudition and insight, Kakutani offers a provocative diagnosis of our current condition and points toward a new path for our truth-challenged times.

"Today it seems that conspiracy and rumour spread faster than ever and are increasingly hard to debunk. How do we convincingly explain the difference between good information and misinformation? A matter of fact explores the science of communicating and presents innovative ways to talk effectively (and empathetically) about contentious information"--Publisher information.

Talk of so-called fake news, what it is and what it isn’t, is front and center across the media landscape, with new calls for the public to acquire appropriate research and evaluation skills and become more information savvy. But none of this is new for librarians and information professionals, particularly for those who teach information literacy. Cooke, a Library Journal Mover & Shaker, believes that the current situation represents a golden opportunity for librarians to impart these important skills to patrons, regardless of their age or experience. In this Special Report, she demonstrates how. Readers will learn more about the rise of fake news, particularly those information behaviors that have perpetuated its spread;discover techniques to identify fake news, especially online; andexplore methods to help library patrons of all ages think critically about information, teaching them ways to separate fact from fiction. Information literacy is a key skill for all news consumers, and this Special Report shows how librarians can make a difference by helping patrons identify misinformation.

How we arrived in a post-truth era, when “alternative facts” replace actual facts, and feelings have more weight than evidence. Are we living in a post-truth world, where “alternative facts” replace actual facts and feelings have more weight than evidence? How did we get here? In this volume in the MIT Press Essential Knowledge series, Lee McIntyre traces the development of the post-truth phenomenon from science denial through the rise of “fake news,” from our psychological blind spots to the public's retreat into “information silos.” What, exactly, is post-truth? Is it wishful thinking, political spin, mass delusion, bold-faced lying? McIntyre analyzes recent examples—claims about inauguration crowd size, crime statistics, and the popular vote—and finds that post-truth is an assertion of ideological supremacy by which its practitioners try to compel someone to believe something regardless of the evidence. Yet post-truth didn't begin with the 2016 election; the denial of scientific facts about smoking, evolution, vaccines, and climate change offers a road map for more widespread fact denial. Add to this the wired-in cognitive biases that make us feel that our conclusions are based on good reasoning even when they are not, the decline of traditional media and the rise of social media, and the emergence of fake news as a political tool, and we have the ideal conditions for post-truth. McIntyre also argues provocatively that the right wing borrowed from postmodernism—specifically, the idea that there is no such thing as objective truth—in its attacks on science and facts. McIntyre argues that we can fight post-truth, and that the first step in fighting post-truth is to understand it.

"A few numbers came to define Chinese politics, until they did not count what mattered and what they counted did not measure up. Seeking Truth argues that the Chinese government adopted a system of limited, quantified vision in order to survive the disasters unleashed by Mao Zedong's ideological leadership, explains how that system worked, and analyzes how problems accumulated in its blind spots leading Xi Jinping to take the regime into a neopolitical turn. Xi's new normal is an attempt fix the problems of the prior system, as well as a hedge against an inability to do so. The book argues that while of course dictators stay in power through coercion and cooptation, they also do so by convincing their populations and themselves of their right to rule. Quantification is one tool in this persuasive arsenal, but it comes with its own perils"--