OpenCdA’s post on October 14, 2013, titled Highly Recommended did just that: It highly recommended the book Detecting Bull, Second Edition, by John H. McManus. As noted in my post, the book includes an entire chapter devoted to and titled “The SMELL Test.”
The SMELL test can help consumers evaluate news.
First I’ll briefly summarize the SMELL test. Then readers can try a practical exercise based on a local news story in the Coeur d’Alene Press.
S-M-E-L-L is Dr. McManus’s mnemonic to help news consumers evaluate a news story.
S – Ask yourself, “What is the Source of the information in the news story?”
M – Ask yourself, “What is the source’s Motivation to provide the information?”
E – Ask yourself, “What Evidence does the news story provide to allow you to evaluate the claims in the news story?”
L – Ask yourself, “Is the news story’s premise based on sound Logic or one or more logical fallacies?”
L – Ask yourself, “What has been Left out of the news story? What is missing that should have been included?”
On October 18, 2013, the Coeur d’Alene Press online ran a news story by Jeff Selle/Staff writer. The online story was headlined Widmyer admits error in NIC board decision. The story’s writer, Jeff Selle, included information extracted from my OpenCdA post titled Steve Widmyer: Not Suitable for Mayor. My OpenCdA post was first published on October 15 but subsequently “bumped” to October 18 with an introductory explanation added then.
Now, here’s the practical exercise. Compare the information Press Staff writer Jeff Selle used from OpenCdA in his news article with the information that appeared in the OpenCdA post. Apply the SMELL test to Selle’s news story.
Hopefully your application of the SMELL test to the news story will help you better understand your own biases about how you read and interpret the news. As Dr. McManus points out in his book’s last chapter titled “Online Tools for Sniffing Out Bias, Including Our Own”, “We can — and ought to — become aware of our own biases. Our partisan biases distort how we perceive the world around us.”
(Just for Fun: Although OpenCdA is an opinion and commentary weblog and does not represent itself to be a news organization, today’s OpenCdA post includes a fairly glaring example of one type of bias Dr. McManus discusses in Detecting Bull, Second Edition. Feel free to leave a comment identifying that intentional bias I’ve included. That bias was intentionally included; the rest of them in the post are my own. I really have to re-read Dr. McManus’s last chapter again … and again.)
Febreze is excellent at masking odors; no question about it. The only problem with one good shot of Febreze, or more as needed, is that sooner or later the can is empty. Unless the source of the smell is addressed and cleaned up and removed the smell returns. Then you are left standing there with the stench returning and an empty can of Febreze. One day Coeur d’Alene residents’ can of Febreze will be empty. Perhaps when their can is empty they will choose to address the source of the smell and clean up and remove the source. How much Febreze is remaining, if any, in the Coeur d’Alene residents’ can will be known when the results of the City’s upcoming elections are announced. Hopefully their can is empty. As a non-city resident, I can tell you that the wind blows a great amount of the smell emanating from Coeur d’Alene,, much like what occurred when the grass fields were burned not so long ago, into Post Falls, Hayden, Hayden Lake, Rathdrum, Spirit Lake, and Athol. Coeur d’Alene is the ‘hub’ and what, and what does not, go on in Coeur d’Alen impacts all of the surrounding communities. Over the years every time I have opened the ‘skewpaper’ the rustling of the pages has caused me to run for my can of Febreze. I don’t want to have to purchase several more boxes of Febreze cans.
Comment by up river — October 21, 2013 @ 4:51 pm