pinocchio.jpg I’ve been harping a lot lately on the fact-checkers, like PolitiFact, and how they too often fall for a type of phony journalistic “balance” that those of us who practice science journalism as a trade have long abhorred. And then it occurred to me: Maybe the deep difference between science
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DeSmogBlog: “End Medicare?” How Phony Bipartisanship Created a Fact Checking Disaster
pinocchio.jpg Just last week, I wrote about the core problem facing the new breed of political fact-checkers: The political right is more factually wrong, meaning that taking a strictly “bipartisan” approach will inevitably leave the fact-checkers themselves guilty of phony “balance.” And it will also lead to them occasionally having
Continue readingPolitifact RIP
Krugman is justifiably outraged over Politifact’s “Pants on Fire Lie of the Year”. Of course, the ‘lie’ chosen by the southern fact-checking company is attributed to Democrats, not to any Republican. Consider for a second the outrageous lies spewed over the past year by the likes of Bachmann, Gingrich, Boehner,
Continue readingDeSmogBlog: Can Fact Checking be Politically “Neutral,” When Facts Are Not Equally Distributed Across the Political Spectrum?
pinocchio.jpg Recently, I sat in on an off-the-record meeting about political fact-checking. I can’t report or quote from the event, but it spurred along some general thoughts that had already arisen in the context of writing The Republican Brain, which focuses a great deal on fact-checking—and thus, helped propel this post.
Continue readingStudy: people who watch Fox News less informed than if they had not watched the network
Remember when Politifact knocked back Jon Stewart for claiming Fox News viewers were “the most consistently misinformed media viewers”? As Steve Benen points out, Stewart was right. As it turns out, this new report coincides with another study published in the International Journal of Press/Politics that found Fox News viewers are far
Continue readingDeSmogBlog: Fox News Viewers are the Most Misinformed: A Seventh Study Arrives to Prove It (and to Vindicate Jon Stewart!)
cavuto-20070117-global-2.jpg Two of my most popular posts here at DeSmogBlog were a pair of items documenting 1) just how many surveys have found Fox News viewers to be more misinformed about factual reality and 2) taking PolitiFact to task for giving Jon Stewart a “false” rating when he pointed this out.
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