Tuesday, December 16, 2008

What Channel Will You De-Spin?

What Channel Will You De-Spin?
Todd Herman, SpinSpotter Founder

As we near the release of our Explorer Toolbar for Human Spin Spotters, we are testing a new video that which you can see right here. This has already caused a little bit of controversy ... right now 50% of people who have commented on it think it's "anti-Obama" and 50% think it's "anti-Bush". So, perhaps we made the vaunted middle-ground for lending offense. But, we didn't mean to lean either way...the piece is about Spin Images, be they words, pictures, camera angles, lighting, special effects of complete doctoring of photos. Can you spot the spin? Are we re-spinning?



If this video inspires you to do something about media-spin then please grab your Spinoculars and set forth; the most efficient, fun and easy way to contribute to a de-spun news media is to de-spin the channel you think is most guilty of spin. You will enjoy the feeling of editing their pages! Do this once a day and share what you find, through our share tool, by joining our Facebook Group or simply my leaving your comment here.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

Wow! Thank you! Spin Spotters has been very helpful to me in my political science/journalism studies at TSU in Mo, USA. It is extremely easy to accept narratives that are spun if they reinforce your personal point of view or belief system. This has happened to all of us from time to time (last year I was really into leftist blogs)- however, thinking about the news in terms of rhetorical structure and spin helps me to stay more aware of this effect. This video tapped into a lot of important things that we really only get a glimpse of in mass communications classes.
Thanks for this awesome SPIN spotting tool! It puts critical thinking back into reading news!
And NO, this video was not biased for one party or another. you were just showing prominent examples of spin- and of media outlets reinforcing national narratives