A Watershed Moment for Real-Time Fact-Checking
It was a positive development in a very negative presidential campaign
The news media’s aggressive, real-time fact-checking of Rep. Paul Ryan’s acceptance speech Wednesday night at the Republican National Convention was a watershed moment. News organization after news organization weighed in to catalogue the parade of distortions and untruths in the GOP vice presidential nominee’s address.
The evolution of the fact-checking movement in journalism has been gradual, but this latest incarnation is essential for two reasons: today’s frantic media pace and the willingness, even eagerness of politicians to pay so little regard to the truth.
Candidates must be called out on their lies, right away, and over and over again.
Sure, the fact-checkers will be tuned out by the true believers who think their side is always virtuous and their rivals are always wrong. But on behalf of those who are still open to the truth, it’s the job of the news media to dig it out.
In recent years, new outlets have begun to move away from he-said, she-said coverage in favor of trying to sort it out for readers and viewers. But I can’t remember many instances where so much fact-checking was available so close to the event.
Of course, Ryan’s speech had something to do with that. His disregard for the truth was simply spectacular. Fox News’ Sally Kohn called the speech “an apparent attempt to set the world record for the greatest number of blatant lies and misrepresentations slipped into a single political speech.” The Washington Post’s Melinda Hennenberger wrote, “As I listened to Paul Ryan, I couldn’t remember ever hearing an acceptance speech so rich in untrue un-facts.”