Truth-Squadding Mission: Calling out presidential campaigns when they distort the truth
Art Brisbane, at the time the New York Times’ public editor, started an interesting and sometimes heated discussion in January when he asked in a column if news organizations should aggressively fact-check statements made by newsmakers.
The nasty and often fact-challenged presidential campaign we are watching makes clear why the answer to that question must be an emphatic “yes.”
Months before voters go to the polls, the electorate has been treated to an overwhelming avalanche of advertising and allegations ranging from misleading to flat-out untrue.
That makes it even more important for the news media to push back as hard as they can.
As I’ve written before, one of the positive developments in journalism has been the rise of the fact-checking movement. For too many years, too much political reportage consisted of Candidate A alleges whatever, Candidate B says there’s nothing to it — and then full stop. No sorting it out, no conclusion.
The rise of outfits like the Annenberg Public Policy Center’s FactCheck.org and the Tampa Bay Times’ PolitiFact, which take apart the various assertions and render verdicts on their veracity, has been an enormous step forward. Some individual news outlets like the Washington Post have their own fact-checking operations. And PolitiFact has set up franchises around the country in concert with regional news outlets.
Having a stand-alone judgment is good as far as it goes, but it doesn’t go far enough. That’s why it’s so important to repeat those conclusions in individual news stories every time the charge surfaces.