I like to read. And, when I say, “I like to read,” I mean that I like to read to the extent that I prefer taking the Red Line Rapid to work for no other reason than that it gives me more time to delve into a good book. And, while I do read for entertainment, lately I prefer to read for the sake of knowledge and information.

As a result of having recently worked my way through a number of politically charged publications, I’m finding myself more and more consumed by the problem of differentiating supportable facts from fanatical opinions. With each author touting their own “truth,” where should I draw the line between qualified commentary and overly biased opinion? Do I trust Ann Coulter or Al Franken? Michael Moore or Bill O’Reilly?

Scanning the shelves at the bookstore, I’m haunted by an impish creature floating over each shoulder, except, instead of the miniature devil and angel seen in movies and on TV, my version is composed of a junior-sized Sean Hannity on one side and an Alan Colmes on the other: “Don’t buy THAT book! It’s just another Bush-bashing diatribe!” or “I wouldn’t read THAT if I were you. It has a foreword written by Rush Limbaugh.”

Given the choices at hand, I find it no surprise that a large portion of adults prefer the news reported by Comedy Central’s Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert.

Consequently, I began to search for some sort of standard by which to base my purchasing decisions. While processing several internal arguments, I thought back to my high school English class: how did Mr. Folkerth know if I had written a good paper? It occurred to me then that Folkerth had always checked my sources.

Like showing your work in math class, the easiest way to cut to the crux of an argument is to reveal the source of the information or opinion. With this as my initial premise, I decided to conduct an impromptu study of which authors presented more bang for my buck. Heading to the bookstore, I took a list of some of the more recent and popular liberal and conservative books to chart their use of reputable sources.

However, the first few texts led me to conclude that any trend, while individually a curiosity, had absolutely no bearing on ascertaining fact from fiction.

Is the conservative-leaning “Unhinged,” by Michelle Malkin, (containing roughly one page of notes for every four pages of text) more credible than “State of Denial,” by Bob Woodward (with a scarce one page of notes for every 17 pages of text)? And, if so, what do you do with books such as “The One Percent Doctrine” (Ron Suskind) or “Culture Warrior” (Bill O’Reilly), neither of which have any endnotes at all?

With so many differing opinions floating around in publications, just having a bibliography is essentially meaningless. Whatever your opinion, it won’t take you more than a few seconds with any internet search engine to find someone, somewhere that has put your argument in print.

While I won’t go so far as to call out any individual authors, here are the two major stumbling blocks I run into when trying to discern credible information from credited sources…
A) From where did the information come and in what context? Quoting from the New York Times means nothing on its own. Something said in a Times editorial has a different connotation from something appearing on the front page.

B)The age-old adage is “Figures Lie and Liars Figure”. How many times have you seen the phrase “studies show” or heard a person make the claim “research indicates”? Make sure you know who did the research and how it was done before lending any credibility to the prescribed results. How many of you were swayed after hearing “Industry Leaders” state “I believe Nicotine is not addictive”?

The result is that it is next to impossible for the casual reader to check the background for each of these books, and thus, the choice usually is decided by personal preference. Like most elections, who you trust is major factor.

Unless you are willing to stretch yourself, reading the opinions of both writers you support and writers you oppose, you’ll often miss vital points of the issue. And an uninformed opinion is never strong.

With all of this in mind, I came to two conclusions:

1)I will try to read as many differing opinions on each topic. I have already read ‘the Art of War’ by Sun Tzu and believe firmly in the strategy of knowing your enemy.

2)If possible, I will try to cut out the middleman. Why look at pictures of a painting, when you can look at the painting itself. Therefore, instead of reading authors offering opinion about an academic publication, I will seek out the academic publication and first try to formulate my own opinion.


If you’re wondering where this left me in my literary quest, I have two books in my current reading queue: “Darwin’s Black Box” by Michael J. Behe and “Truth and Tolerance” by Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger (who currently goes by the name Pope Benedict XVI).