Samuel C. Spitale shared his story and experiences with us recently and you can find our conversation below.
Samuel, a huge thanks to you for investing the time to share your wisdom with those who are seeking it. We think it’s so important for us to share stories with our neighbors, friends and community because knowledge multiples when we share with each other. Let’s jump in: Can you briefly introduce yourself and share what makes you or your brand unique?
I’m a communication studies instructor at Loyola Marymount and author of the book How to Win the War on Truth: An Illustrated Guide to How Mistruths Are Sold, Why They Stick, and How to Reclaim Reality (Quirk Books). It’s part crash course in media literacy, part guide to debunking misinformation, and part critical thinking learning tool.
I can often be found hosting panels on media literacy at comic-cons as well as giving talks on misinformation and social media for various political and professional organizations.
On my YouTube channel, The Truth About…, I post short animated videos that clear up the truth behind different topics. Whatever the medium, I’m passionate about debunking misbeliefs that work against our best interest, especially those that manipulate us into supporting products, policies, or politicians that actually make our lives worse. Check out https://www.youtube.com/@HowToWinTheWarOnTruth
What’s the most surprising thing you’ve learned about your customers?
When I set out to write a book about identifying misinformation, I expected the audience to be concerned citizens who needed help navigating the information landscape. However, the more I speak to people at talks and signings, the more I learn that many are fairly capable of sifting through misinformation, themselves. What often concerns them is how to break through to their loved ones who cannot do the same.
For them, the book is a guide to understanding the factors that keep people misinformed. Is it a lack of media literacy—an inability to distinguish public relations spin from journalism in our social media feeds? Is it an unwillingness to accept information that conflicts with our most deeply held beliefs, lest we have to admit we’ve been wrong? What psychological needs do the misbeliefs serve? Do they reinforce hereditary prejudices? Do they justify inequities from which we benefit? Do we have a financial incentive to deny the truth, as with fossil fuel companies’ role in global warming? Or are those beliefs tied to our tribal identities, so abandoning them threatens our sense of self and even our own self-worth?
As many as a third of Americans feel estranged from a close family member or longtime friend, and this is due in large part to people living in different realities, no longer sharing a common set of truths. So people seek to understand WHY their friends and family have fallen down the rabbit hole. For them, the book provides a framework for understanding this phenomenon, which can help in strategizing how best to get through to them.
Thanks for sharing that. Would love to go back in time and hear about how your past might have impacted who you are today. Who saw you clearly before you could see yourself?
When I was in high school, I worked part-time at the local public library. There was a lady named Karen who ran the children’s programming. She recruited me to help write and perform puppet shows for the summer reading program. She must have noticed a creative spark in me, and nurtured it at a time when I had very few creative outlets. I grew up in a small conservative town in the Deep South, which often felt quite stifling and provincial. Karen provided intellectual validation and a worldly wisdom that I really needed at that age. I always felt like she just got me. We had the same sense of humor and the same taste in stories, from books to TV to film.
Karen was one of two people to whom I dedicated the book. Unfortunately, she passed away two months before publication, so she never got to see her name in print. She had, however, seen an early concept of the book in a (very) long PowerPoint presentation. This was back when I was still trying to figure out the right structure for the material, but the basic concepts were all there.
I know she would have been proud of the final product—not just because of the importance of the subject matter, but also because of the sense of humor and whimsy in the illustrations. I know they would have made her chuckle.
When you were sad or scared as a child, what helped?
When life brought me down growing up, I often escaped into books, comics, or movies. Getting lost in a good story gave me an escape from the real world. That’s probably partly why I’ve become a writer and storyteller. Stories have the power to transport us into other people’s shoes, helping us empathize with people unlike ourselves. Research shows that people who read tend to have higher levels of empathy, and I think that’s why.
So a lot of these questions go deep, but if you are open to it, we’ve got a few more questions that we’d love to get your take on. What’s a belief you used to hold tightly but now think was naive or wrong?
I used to think that most societal debates were between two equally valid arguments. However, the older I get, the more I find that many of our current debates are really between fact and faith, between things that are verifiably true and things that merely feel true. Most of the beliefs that we take on faith have been sold to us by corporations or the wealthy in order to protect someone’s power or profits, from denying global warming to claims of voter fraud.
It’s no coincidence that the misbeliefs tend to work in favor of existing power structures or wealthy business interests (such as the oil and gas industry in regards to global warming, or politicians who must restrict voting access under the pretense of election fraud in order to win elections).
How to Win the War on Truth examines how these misbeliefs historically have served those in power, from the Catholic Church (who created the term propaganda) to modern industry (who rely on propaganda to protect their profits). Understanding which arguments are intellectually dishonest—and exist only to undermine science or discount factual information—is vital to making informed decisions and protecting democracy, especially in a world where if you repeat a lie often enough, it essentially becomes the truth.
Thank you so much for all of your openness so far. Maybe we can close with a future oriented question. Could you give everything your best, even if no one ever praised you for it?
Absolutely. If you are a writer or an artist, chances are much of the work you create will never be seen, no less praised! I don’t think anyone goes into the arts for the accolades. They pursue these careers because the mere act of creating is itself rewarding. It’s a means of self-expression. It’s a way to funnel all of your frustrations at the world into something productive and meaningful. Having a creative outlet can be extremely cathartic. People write and create because they have something to say, and they can’t NOT say it.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://samuelcspitale.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/samuelcspitale
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/samuel-chris-spitale-8a9912172/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/samuelcspitale
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@HowToWinTheWarOnTruth
Image Credits
Image Credits
Art by Allan Whincup. Headshot by Kumars Moghtader.
