This WSU Newsline Podcast is available at http://www.wichita.edu/newslinepodcast. See the transcript below:

You’re listening to the podcast edition of the Wichita State University audio newsline. Learn more about WSU — the home of Thinkers, Doers, Movers and Shockers — on the Web at wichita.edu.

In a presidential election year full of speeches and debates, it’s not always easy to separate fact from fiction. Susan Huxman, director of the Elliott School of Communication at Wichita State University, says there are reasons why candidates sometimes appear to be truth challenged.

Huxman: “Candidates tend to flirt with fact or fiction, in part because there’s no such thing as truth with a capital T. This is political discourse and we’re talking about social values.”

Huxman explains why candidates sometimes say inaccuracies.

Huxman: “One of the reasons that candidates sometimes say inaccuracies is because the formats are so constrictive — ads and presidential debates are anywhere from nine seconds to two minutes.”

And Huxman says there is a major reason why inaccuracies happen during presidential campaigns.

Huxman: “Inaccuracies happen, in part, because politicians have to draw sharp distinctions between themselves and the rest of the crowded field. And so you see a candidate really struggling to say, ‘I’m quite different from candidate X,’ and that leads to exaggeration.”

Not all mistakes are necessarily viewed as particularly grievous, as Huxman explains.

Huxman: “I think generally people are not that concerned when a candidate may miss a number in saying something like 20,000 homeless sleep under a bridge who are veterans, when maybe the real answer is 18,000, and this was a comment particularly related to John Edwards. I think we’re far more concerned, and rightly so, when candidates make large kinds of cause and effect arguments, that simply on very close analysis are not true, like, did they really reduce taxes in their state when they were governor?”

In fact, it’s nearly impossible for presidential candidates to tell the truth and nothing but the truth.

Huxman: “You know, candidates simply cannot tell the whole truth. In a political context, that’s impossible. If they were to do that, if they were to with complete context be entirely accurate, they would only be speaking to an audience of experts and technical scientists and would lose an audience share.”

Nevertheless, Huxman says it’s good that there are organizations that hold candidates’ feet to the fire.

Huxman: “I must say that I think it is incredibly important in a democracy that we do have organizations and news sources who hold candidates feet to the fire, so that if there is an inaccuracy, whether it’s slight or large, that once that’s called to attention it’s not going to be repeated again.”

“I think we need to realize that, in addition to truth, we need to be looking at ethics. We need to be looking at aesthetics. We need to be looking at what is the effect of a particular person’s ideas or proposals or initiatives, and those are separate criteria.”

Huxman says there are many informative Web sites that watch the accuracy of what candidates are saying, such as www.factcheck.org, by the Annenberg School, www.politifact.com, and www.realclearpolitics.com.

Thanks for listening. Until next time, this is Joe Kleinsasser for Wichita State University.