The State Of American ‘Fact-Checking’ Is Completely Useless
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
If media wants to challenge the context and politics of Republican arguments, that’s their prerogative. There are plenty of legitimately misleading statements worthy of fact-checkers’ attention. Yet, with a veneer of impartiality, fact-checkers often engage in a uniquely dishonest style of partisanship. And State of Union coverage gave us an abundance of examples of how they do it:
Hyper-precision fact-checking that creates the impression that a Republican is misleading the public: For this, take Politico’s insinuation that Donald Trump was lying to the public about abuse of women at the border. During the State of the Union, Trump claimed “one in three women is sexually assaulted on the long journey north.” This contention is only “partly true,” according to Politico, because a “2017 report by Doctors Without Borders” found that only 31 percent of female migrants and 17 percent of male migrants said they had been actually abused while traveling through Mexico.
Whether Doctors Without Borders’ scary statistic is accurate or not, is one thing. Trump, however, was being called out for asserting that “one in every three” illegal immigrants has been abused attempting to cross the border rather than “33.333 percent of women”––probably a rounding error in the poll. It is almost surely the case that every past president and every politician has used “one-third” or “one-half” rather than a specific fraction, and walked away without being fact-checked.
Fact-checking subjective political assertions: The New York Times provided a masterclass in bad faith fact-checking by taking political contentions offered by the president and subjecting them to a supposed i mpartial test of accuracy. In his speech, Trump called the illegal border crossing “an urgent national crisis.” The New York Times says “this is false.” Why? Because illegal border crossing have been declining for two decades, they say. Customs and Border Protection agents, they go on to explain, had arrested around 50,000 people trying to illegally cross the southwestern border each of the last three months, which was only half of the arrests they had made in comparable months in the mid-2000s.
Even if those numbers correct, there is no way to factcheck urgency. After all, a lessening crisis doesn’t necessarily mean it isn’t a pressing one. We’ve seen a steep decline in gun violence over the past 30 years. Would The New York Times ever “fact-check” a Democrat who argued that gun violence was an “urgent crisis” of public safety? Of course not. But this fluctuating standard allows journalists to “fact-check” any subjective political contention they desire.
If I claim that socialism is the greatest threat to American freedom and prosperity, I may well be right. I may have a lots of historical and economic evidence to back up my assertion. You can argue that I’m wrong. You can lay out statistics that attempt to prove me wrong. You can call me crazy. But you can’t produce an unbiased “fact-check” to establishing that my opinion is conclusively false. You’re just writing an op-ed piece.
Partisan talking point masquerading as a fact check: “FACT CHECK: President Trump praised the record number of women in Congress, but that’s almost entirely because of Democrats, not Trump’s party,” NPR tweeted, correcting the record on a statement that president never made.
Here’s what Trump said:
“And exactly one century after Congress passed the Constitutional amendment giving women the right to vote, we also have more women serving in Congress than at any time before. That’s great. Very great. And congratulations. That’s great.”
Trump was offering his rundown on the state of the union, not the Republican Party. It’s true that presidents take credit for all the good things that happen under their watch. Trump is no exception. In this rare case, however, Trump didn’t even take credit for electing the female politicians. In fact, he congratulated them after they broke out into cheers over his comment. Some people have argued that the NPR’s piece was providing context to the president’s comment. Perhaps. Still, their nitpicking created the impression that somehow Trump had misled the public. He did not.
Fact-checking meant to obscure actual facts: The Washington Post’ s fact-checking page offered a number of egregious examples of outright misinformation. In one of them, reporter Meg Kelly claimed that, “Abortion legislation in New York wouldn’t do what Trump said.” There are a number of words in her post intimating that Trump lied about the New York and Virginia late-term abortion bills, but none of her words debunk Trump’s core contention. Ramesh Ponnuru has a good rundown here.
Here’s what Trump said:
“Lawmakers in New York cheered with delight upon the passage of legislation that would allow a baby to be ripped from the mother’s womb moments before birth. These are living, feeling, beautiful, babies who will never get the chance to share their love and dreams with the world. And then, we had the case of the governor of Virginia where he stated he would execute a baby after birth.”
As I’ve noted before, the biggest clue that you’re about to read a deceptive fact check on the abortion issue is an author mentioning that “only” few abortions of viable babies take place. “Indeed,” Kelly writes, “only 1.3 percent of abortions — or about 8,500 a year — take place at or after 21 weeks, according to 2014 data from the Center for Disease Control and Prevention and the Guttmacher Institute.” This number, as Ponnuru points out, is almost surely low. Whatever the case, Trump never claimed “most” abortions were post-20 weeks. Whether 8,500 or 15,000, thousands of viable babies are being aborted. No fact-checker would ever point out that only .0001 percent of legal gun owners commit crimes when talking about more firearm restrictions (and, yes, that’s an approximation).
And yes, the president bit of rhetorical flourish to say that babies can be “ripped from the mother’s womb moments before birth” because, actually, they can be poisoned or dismembered in the mother’s womb moments before birth. Both the Virginia bill, which was tabled, and the New York law allow, just as Trump says (in his blunt language), for the termination of infants who survive the abortion procedure. Absolutely nothing in The Post’s “fact check” debunks the president’s contention that in New York, and elsewhere, abortion on demand until crowning (and after) is now legal as long as the woman and a doctor decide that the baby is stressful in some way to the mother. How often it happens is up for debate. What the bill says is inarguable.
Update : Factchecking a truthful statement by demanding that Trump highlight information that has absolutely nothing to do with his contention. As an astute reader points out this PBS fact-check of a Trump tweetfrom a couple of weeks ago. I’ve noticed this genre, as well. In it the president points out that a reputable Marist/NPR/PBS Poll had shown that his approval rating among Latinos had risen to 50 percent, an increase of 19 percent over a year’s time. After confirming that, yes, Trump had been precise in his assertion regarding their poll, PBS spends around 700 words taking Trump to task for failing to highlight other negative information in the poll. Will this be a new standard for all politicians?
The state of American fact-checking is dreadfully misleading. There’s no reason for conservatives to give its authors the deference they seek.
David Harsanyi is a Senior Editor at The Federalist.
Tags
Who is online
304 visitors
Fact checking is useless?
Yes. On about 40% of the electorate.
The specter of Birtherism was permitted to breathe, even made it on the daily talk shows and general conversations with little pushback.
And then there is the effective measure of the 'alternative facts'. This is...………..expected. The Russians are here.
In other words, you support the effort by the media to fudge any fact just to contradict the President.
Uh no. Those contradictions would be yours.
Name one 'fudged fact'.
Just one.
Well, aside from the highlighted one in this article, which you are obviously ignoring, there are the facts that the media want to add to. For example, the President made a general statement as follows: “More people are working now than at any time in our history.” to which the New York Times rated as misleading! The reason? Because the Times didn't feel that Trump was responsible for it:
That is a fudge of facts.
Have a good one
Well, he wasn't but, we could debate that all day, I would say that what we need to do is watch what happens in the coming year, economists say that we will be in another recession before the next election, let's find out.
A lot of plant closings. Especially here in Ohio. Our population is also larger than ever. These considerations must be weighed honestly and fairly.
Sears going under and other businesses large and small. The Carrier thing has turned out to be a bust. The list continues. Ignore it. " I don't really care---do you?"
He never claimed he was! The statement stands as TRUE!
Fact checking is useless when it comes to Trump supporters. They eat his lies up like they were candy. I don't need FC to know that Trump is a lying sos, using made up data to fear monger.
Fact checking is only useless to his base as they eat his lies like candy. But for the rest of us, we want to know the truth.
President Trump praised the record number of women in Congress, but that’s almost entirely because of Democrats, not Trump’s party,” NPR tweeted , correcting the record on a statement that president never made.
This is “fact checking” in a nutshell. It’s just editorial masked as objective reporting.
Given his pathetic record for truthfulness, a lie detector should be permanently strapped to Trump's head and kept turned on all the time he is speaking.
Fact-checking is one of the worst things that has happened to modern journalism. I've been saying it for a long time.
Fact-checking is supposed to be part of the ordinary job of journalists. In 2009, the White House press corps became the White House stenographers pool, dutifully repeating uncritically whatever the White House told them.
Self-proclaimed fact checkers meanwhile split absurd hairs and fact check opinion, then publish their own opinion and declare it to be fact.
I beg to differ. I'm old enough to remember Judy Miller of the NYT and her acting as a stenographer and an enabler of the Bush Administration.
'Fact-checker' like the 9/11 Commission, made it clear that Judy Miller and other 'journalists' were used by Bush, Cheney, Rove and Rice to fearmonger.
There is nothing that prohibits fact-checkers being fact-checked. Make the case, cite the facts and win the argument. Fact=checkers are here to stay and as long as Trump keeps spewing lies prolifically, we need them to help keep up with the deluge.
The State of the Union address is not a good example of that.
ONE lie in the SOTU is ONE too many.
For example?
One, huh? ok . . .
“I want people to come into our country in the largest numbers ever, but they have to come in legally.”
From what I'm reading in the seed and the comments is that things that 'lack context' are just fine with y'all. We're talking about outright lies here. Are you claiming that Obama didn't exclude any lobbyists from working in his Administration?
I repeat:
Trump lied.
How is that a lie? Please explain how you are stating that the statement you quoted there is a lie.
Trump set the lowest cap on refugee admissions in the history of the program and he said that he want's Congress to totally eliminate the diversity visa program.
So either he was lying then or he's lying now...
You make that claim based on what Xx? If sure as hell isn't based on the FACTs or the actions actually taken by Trump.
Trump has been in office over 2 years Xx. WTF has he DONE? Hell, he hasn't even made a written proposal. Nothing NADA.
Oh and BTFW Xx, since Trump wants to eliminate 'chain migration' too, how many of those who 'meet America's needs' are going to leave their family FOREVER?
KAG One of the thoughts that I have about immigration is what about the people that we actually had a part in making their lives so miserable and or deady that they want to escape that place, even if it mean s actually coming here to do so ?
What about them, some of the people who end up at our border are in different ways accidental victims of us.
Cartels illegal activities are fueled by US dollars, cartels want control over an area to do their illegal deeds, they fight each other for these places making anyone else in the place miserable, open to unspeakable criminal shit on the most valuable in the masses. A violent lawlessness.
PS: AS we both probably understand most of the illegal Stuff actually has been coming thru checkpoints somewhere somehow anyway, the refugees are not the main suppliers by a long shot if at all.
And as I said some of them are round about victims of our society it self .
So WTF do we do ? Abandon them ?
If so IMO: That SUCKS !
And IMO is not a step toward Greatness.
You made the same claim about reopening the government. Apparently you're not in charge after all.
I hope the House and Senate do their damn jobs and come up with something where they both compromise and come up with something that Trump can't veto, before the 15th.
Thank you for stating the obvious. I have addressed three other forms of immigration in my comments.
Yet it would require that the Administration document HOW they intend to accomplish that feat. We KNOW what they DON'T want. Perhaps you can point to any documentation from the Administration that states what they DO want.
Then you shouldn't assume that I assumed that.
In FACT, my comment refutes your assumption since it address BOTH refugees AND diversity visas. In another comment I also addressed Trump's desire to eliminate 'Chain immigration'.
Now, do you have any documentation of HOW Trump intends to promote MORE legal immigration while still opposing those three forms of legal immigration?
Please refrain from attempting to put words in my mouth.
I NEVER stated that 'Trump wants a reduction in all immigration'.
I dismiss your strawman.
Secondly, the issue isn't 'some types of people' [which is a quite telling phrase], the issue is the entire elimination of long standing LEGAL immigration programs.
You stated:
Yet after being asked to support that assertion, you've failed to do so. You've also failed to provide any evidence that Trump has made any policy proposals that would allow MORE immigrants to come here.
Please proceed.
Yet you did.
Yes, others can clearly see that 'I NEVER stated that 'Trump wants a reduction in all immigration'.
Of course not. It would you require you to support your claim, which obviously you're incapable of doing cogently.
Adulting is harder for some than for others.
Your proclamations are irrelevant Xx.
Sycophancy is rarely relevant.
Okay, the refugee program is not about legal immigration it is about temporary visas to allow people to come to the USA to get away from oppressors. IT is one of the reasons why a large number of people have overstayed their visas and have become illegal immigrants. One of your arguments against the wall has been the fact that, you have claimed, 80% of illegal immigrants overstayed their visas.
The diversity visa program is about artificially boosting immigration from countries that we don't get many immigrants from. That program would be best be eliminated as it takes away visas from countries that we get a much larger number of immigrants from and therefore would allow more people from say Guatemala to apply for legal immigrant status than currently due to say someone from Aruba getting a diversity visa set aside for them even though they may not want to emigrate to the USA.
So, you think it is okay to automatically approve every single cousin as well as parents, siblings, children, and spouse of an immigrant? Because, that is essentially what chain migration is, since there is no real limit on the number of family members or how closely related they have to be. Heck, you have had the courts strike down limits on how closely related a person has to be before being allowed in to include grandparents as well as parents, siblings, children, and spouse. Frankly, I would like the people allowed automatic visas to be limited to spouse and children as that is the immediate family living in a single household in the USA for the most part.
Not okay. Refugees don't get visas. Sheesh, where do you get this stuff?
Really tom. When did I say 80%? Please post a link.
Guatemala is a DV country.
Since allegedly Trump wants MORE legal immigration, instead of eliminating ANY immigration programs, why not remove the caps set on ALL legal immigration? Why not eliminate the DV lottery and open it up to whoever qualifies?
WTF is it with the strawmen being thrown around lately? Where did I even infer that tom?
FALSE.
Here READ some FACTS for a change:
So Melania shouldn't have been able to sponsor her parents. Got ya.
Mores the pity.
Refugees are here temporarily, or at least that is what is supposed to be the case.
I didn't look up the DV countries, I was comparing a country with a lot of people coming up here including some members of my extended family versus a country which I know we don't get very many immigrants from.
That is what he wants to do.
Seriously tom, do you never tire of being wrong?
Judging from your unfounded proclamations tom, you rare look up anything.
No tom. Trump wants to eliminate the DV program in it's entirety. I say eliminate the lottery part of it and take everyone who qualifies. Get it yet?
When Donald Trump isn't lying, he's speaking in useless generic hyperbole. His call for bipartisanship was as phony as his orange tan. I will admit he stuck the the script that was written for him and that pleased many conservatives. It was a disguised proffered hand while the other hand was used to stab his opponents in the back. I'm sure Putin enjoyed Trumps performance as much as the white nationalists in America did.
While I fully expected the fact checkers to come out immediately after the State of the Union as they did, I didn't need them to know Trump was lying at least half the time or taking credit for things that he had nothing to do with, he simply inherited (which is the true story of his life, utter failure but for the inheritance).
FACT CHECKERS......Pfffffft !
"Don't Believe the Liberal "Fact-Checkers"!
"More and more, major news outlets are relying on “fact checkers” to, allegedly, ensure that the news is factual, sources are reliable, and statements are accurate."
" In theory, this is admirable. In practice, it has proven to be simply another opportunity for the media to push their leftist agenda."
"Voters Don’t Trust Media Fact-Checking"
"A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone and online survey finds that just 29% of all Likely U.S. Voters trust media fact-checking of candidates’ comments. Sixty-two percent (62%) believe instead that news organizations skew the facts to help candidates they support."
Biggest problem as I see it is, The media goes all a flutter about all the Great Fact Checkers on their payrolls, yet they still get so much wrong in most of their "News?" reporting.
It's a Good thing they have Fact Checkers before going to print (just a few):
"ABC News had to correct a report indicating that Lt. Gen. Michael T. Flynn acted on Donald Trump’s instructions in allegedly violating the Logan Act under instruction by Donald Trump."
"A CNN story wrongly tying Anthony Scaramucci to a Russian investment fund was retracted."
"The Washington Post published a story in December focusing on a 7-year-old migrant child from Guatemala who died in border patrol custody. Despite WaPo’s misleading headline suggesting border patrol was to blame for the girl’s death, the full timeline of events and statements from the girl’s father praising border agents revealed a different story."
"The New York Times initially tied U.S. Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley to expensive curtains hanging in the ambassador’s apartment in New York, writing, “Nikki Haley’s View of New York Is Priceless. Her Curtains? $52,701. However, NYT’s own article later admitted that the curtains were approved in 2016 and that Haley had no say in the matter."
"CNN’s Jim Sciutto, MSNBC’s Katy Tur, and MSNBC’s Ari Melber were all responsible for falsely claiming that Never-Trump Republicans were responsible for initial funding of the salacious Steele dossier.
Washington Free Beacon founder Paul Singer did pay Fusion GPS for standard opposition research, however, he stopped paying Fusion GPS well before they contracted Christopher Steele to create the dossier. That research was paid for solely by the DNC and the Clinton campaign.
This falsehood has been shared so many times that even former FBI director James Comey has repeated it."
"MSNBC anchor Rachel Maddow opened a show in July by insisting that the Trump administration edited a tape of the president’s meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin on July 16 in Helsinki.
The Washington Post’s Phillip Bump pointed out that the error was made by reporters too and was due to a change “between the feed from the reporters and the feed from the translator.”
"The Associated Press published a report in June about abuse of child immigrants in the U.S., but did its best to bury the fact that the abuse primarily occurred under the Obama administration.
As this reporter noted at the time, “The article mentions President Donald Trump and his administration’s zero-tolerance policy at least four times in the first ten paragraphs, leaving the implicit suggestion that the Trump administration is responsible for the alleged abuse.”
The AP sneakily admitted in the 20th paragraph that the alleged abuse began in 2016 — during the Obama administration — but never bothered to mention Obama’s name in connection with the report."
And your list is only the tip of the left wing media's Hate Trump campaign.
Remember when MSM speculated that Barron Trump had some kind of mental problem because he didn't smile very much? Imagine if anyone said that about Sasha Obama, who also didn't smile much at the same age.
Remember the lies about Melania? Here's only one example of many ...
And to think that the left considers Media Bias/Fact Check to be a reliable resource is hilarious!
I laugh when I see it put out there as the ONLY "Truthful Fact".
I think we need "Fact Checkers" to check the "Fact Checkers", and then, "Fact Checkers" to check those "Fact Checkers" too !
It's a job creator dontchyknow !
From what I've been told, MB/FC is the only fact check source we're allowed to use.
Gosh how convenant, we certainly have a president who has even said words to him dont matter much its deeds that count, now we cant trust the media either ?
O well I guess we start guessing WTF is going on in the reality we exist in now.
That's pretty scary.
Fact checking Donald Trump isn’t useless, it’s just a pointless waste of time. It’s ALL lies.