http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/09/factcheck-politifact-lying-politicians
Editor's note: With Paul Ryan letting loose a string of whoppers at the GOP convention, Newsweek admitting it doesn't verify the accuracy of facts cited by its writers, and a top Romney aide defiantly proclaiming, "We're not going to let our campaign be dictated by fact-checkers," political fact-checking has been a hot topic this campaign season. For our September/October issue, David Corn took an in-depth look at how the verification industry plays into the political lying game—and whether it makes any difference.As Mitt Romney was buttoning up the Republican nomination this past spring, he addressed the annual conventionof the American Society of News Editors in the cavernous ballroom of the Marriott Wardman Park hotel in Washington, DC. He blasted President Obama for breaking a "promise" to keep unemployment below 8 percent—a charge that had previously earned Romney three Pinocchios from theWashington Post's "Fact Checker" column.He also slammed the president for "apologizing for America abroad"—an accusation that PolitiFact had months earlier branded a "pants on fire" lie. And he accused Obama of adding "nearly as much public debt as all the prior presidents combined" (a statement already judged "an exaggeration" byFactCheck.org) and of cutting $500 million from Medicare (a "false" assertion according toPolitiFact).A politician mangling the truth is hardly news. Yet what was notable about this moment was that the candidate felt no compunction about appearing before more than 1,500 journalists and repeating whoppers that their own colleagues had so roundly debunked. Nor was Romney challenged about any of these untruths when it came time to ask questions.He was able to peddle a string of officially determined falsehoods before a crowd of newspaper editors—repeat: a crowd of newspaper editors—and face absolutely no consequences. The uncomfortable question for the press: With the news cycle overwhelmed by the headline-of-the-nanosecond, and with politicians ignoring or openly challenging the truth cops, how much does the much-heralded political fact-checking industry really matter?
bold, yes brazen, yes emboldened, yes devoid of all the value's they claim as their platform, HELL YES.
Big Media's push for independent and ongoing verification of newsmakers' statements stretches back to the mid-2000s, when many news organizations were on the defensive over their failure to vet the Bush administration's claims about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. The Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania launched FactCheck.org, with veteran CNN reporter Brooks Jackson at the helm, in 2003. PolitiFact, created by the St. Petersburg Times, and the Washington Post's Fact Checker followed four years later.
At the Post, reporter Michael Dobbs had proposed creating the Fact Checker feature because he believed, as he put it in a New America Foundation report, DC reporting had "strayed away from the truth-seeking tradition" and become too hung up on the "he said, she said aspect." Dobbs, who as a member of the paper's national security team had seen what he called the "weapons of factual destruction" up close, said journalists were "permitting presidential candidates and others to get away with sometimes outrageous falsehoods."
and get away they have, at the expense of "we the people" who are left with half truths and misleading innuendo and out right lies. used car salesperson's second only to right wing politicians, not absolving those on the left but regardless to the rights talking point " i see it on the left too", most egregious is that reference when it comes to the hate and vitriol they regurgitate on a daily bases, bulimic politicians? no offense to those who suffer with the disorder. but much offense to those politico's.
