This book, by Hector MacDonald, has short chapters about different ways that people can manipulate the truth. Social media and partisan media has made truth a very subjective concept. My eyes were opened to some of the ways that advertisers, and others can put their own spin on objective truth and still be within the “boundaries” of truth. A recommended read.

TRUTH by Hector Macdonald (March 6, 2018; Little, Brown and Company) is, of course, extremely timely and will add to a number of books already in our collection which deal with Psychology, Critical Thinking, Journalism or Mass Media, Objectivity and Bias. Macdonald subtitles his text "How the Many Sides to Every Story Shape Our Reality" and takes a somewhat unusual stand in arguing that truth actually comes in many forms. His book is divided into sections titled: Partial truths, Subjective truths, Artificial Truths, and Unknown truths. In each case, he provides examples; these range from the fad of consuming quinoa to King George VI's speech at the beginning of WWII to pamphlets produced by the Texas Department of State Health Services. At one point, Macdonald notes that Orwell's "fears for the integrity of the truth are turning out to be well-founded but misdirected. It is not simply that we are being lied to; the more insidious problem is that we are routinely misled by the truth." He describes three types of communicators: advocates, misinformers and misleaders, where the latter are deliberately trying to "deploy competing truths to create an impression of reality that they know is not true." This lack of black vs. white and true vs false is a difficult concept for our students and I believe that TRUTH with its many business stories (involving labeling, advertising and motivation) will be a popular resource, especially since teachers have often asked us to teach about "fake news" and misinformation while limiting political examples.