4 Recent Examples Show Why No One Trusts Media ‘Fact Checks’

[Geee]

The Federalist:

A few weeks ago, Donald Trump responded to Meryl Streep’s insults by calling her overrated. Some fact checks came out saying that Streep, in fact, had won many awards. The Associated Press’ “Meryl Streep overrated? Donald Trump picks a decorated star,” was one such example. Four of the seven paragraphs to the story listed awards and honors she’d received.

 

As Victor Morton noted, “‘She has won a bunch of awards’ isn’t even a prima-facie rebuttal of the claim ‘she is overrated’.” He added, “If anything, ‘She won a bunch of awards’ is a necessary precondition for being ‘overrated,’ i.e. rated highly in first place.”

 

Exactly. If journalists involved with the “fact” “check” enterprise are capable of self-reflection, they should begin understanding why so many people find it a waste of time at best. Here are a few other examples just from the past few days.

1) Palestinians Are Not All the Same

The New York Times ran what it claimed was an Associated Press “fact check” on David Friedman, President Donald Trump’s pick to be U.S. ambassador to Israel. Here’s how it began, with a characterization of a Friedman statement and then “THE FACTS”:

 

FRIEDMAN:He said Palestinians had failed to ‘end incitement’ of violence, and terrorism had increased since the Oslo Accords in the 1990s, intended to be a stepping stone toward Palestinian statehood.

 

THE FACTS: Not all Palestinians are the same.