Corporate media is obsessed with former President Donald Trump and his so-called “lies.” Fact-checking is a new media pastime, popularized during the first Trump presidency.
After Trump’s first term, the Washington Post published an article titled “Trump’s false or misleading claims total 30,573 over 4 years.” Wow! How many reporters diligently fact-checked every exaggerated statement made by Trump, such as when he theatrically claimed that his golf courses, clubs, or deals were the “biggest” or the “best”?
CNN weighed in, “Fact check: 12 completely fictional stories Trump has told in the last month.” Have they run any similar articles on Harris or Biden? Including Vice President Kamala Harris’s standard answer for every policy question, “I grew up a middle-class kid”, which fact-checkers would find false.
Why wasn’t fact-checking popular when past presidents claimed, “Saddam Hussein has WMDs”? Or “I did not have sexual relations with that woman”? Or “If you like your health insurance, you can keep your health insurance”?
Given how Donald Trump receives most of the fact-checking scrutiny, this appears to be a partisan activity. Let’s fact-check that.
The Harvard Kennedy School of Misinformation Review, published this, “A survey of expert views on misinformation: Definitions, determinants, solutions, and future of the field.”
From the article, “Experts leaned strongly toward the left of the political spectrum: very right-wing (0), fairly right-wing (0), slightly right-of-center (7), center (15), slightly left-of-center (43), fairly left-wing (62), very left-wing (21).”
In other words, the “misinformation experts” are almost exclusively left-wing partisans. This explains a lot, especially since fact-checking and the new censorship tools of “misinformation” and “disinformation” are being used by the left to silence and bully the right.
Once upon a time, journalists asked who, what, where, when, and why. They investigated and sought the truth. Now they serve as propagandists for America’s ruling class.
They blather about “lies”, “mis/disinformation”, “fact-checking”, and “threats to democracy” in a manner reminiscent of totalitarian dictatorships.
To quote George Orwell, “Whatever the Party holds to be the truth, is truth. It is impossible to see reality except by looking through the eyes of the Party.” It’s 1984 again in America.
Patriotic Patriot
Article URL : https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2024/09/who_fact_checks_the_fact_checkers.html