Is Our Media Learning?
Back in December, NYU journalism professor Jay Rosen had a proposal – fact check the Sunday morning talk shows. The proposal was eagerly embraced in the blogosphere but seemed to go nowhere. ABC’s Jake Tapper, the interim host for This Week has decided to give this a try:
The idea was first proposed by NYU journalism professor Jay Rosen and I thought it worth a try. PolitiFact editor Bill Adair, the St Petersburg Times’ Washington bureau chief, and I know each other from fact-checking forums and such (I was at the Fact Check desk during the 2004 elections) so I asked him if he’d be willing to give it a try. He was.
Obviously I aspire to fact-check newsmakers during the show itself, but in addition to that, starting this Sunday April 12, after the show, you can read Politifact’s fact checks on ABCNews.com/This Week and at Politifact.com.
The guests for the show are Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates and former NYC Mayor Rudy Giuliani. Giuliani will certainly keep those fact-checker busy. I hope this experiment works because the media has really become a place for politicians to deposit their talking points, and the media pretends they don’t know what’s true and what’s false. There’s no penalty for lying. Hopefully fact-checking can start killing those lies that become conventional wisdom (like the one that Rudy Giuliani is some kind of security expert).
Tags: Media
a very hopeful development.
Hopefully we won’t have corrections to a front page story ending up on page C31 below the fold. In TV terms, let’s have the fact check results of last Sunday’s program aired in the last 5 minutes of the following Sunday’s program.
They are going to try to fact check during the program.
Obviously I aspire to fact-check newsmakers during the show itself
This is what needs to start happening, and you can substitute “interview” for “show” as well. Fact checking after the fact is great and all (I love FactCheck — I linked to it yesterday), but these outright lies need to be countered in real time. There have been numerous studies that prove how difficult it is to uproot a lie once it gets in circulation. That’s what these punditicians know, in addition to what UI said about there being no penalty for lying.
There are far too many “reporters” around, and too few “journalists”. I liken the difference to that between a “salesperson” and a “cashier”. A good salesperson will try to inform the buyer and educate them on what they’re buying. A cashier just rings up whatever you plunk on the counter. Likewise, real journalists attempt to get to the facts of a story and hold figures accountable for what they say and do. Reporters simply copy down whatever anyone tells them and pretend it’s news.
Is it only me, or should this not be news? I understand certain statements getting by reporters, you can’t know the facts on every issue. But too often the media allows both sides to come on and spin, and spin is presented as two sides with equal value. On certain issues, war, abortion, affirmative action, there are two sides, but on many issues there simply are not two sides. Too often I’ve heard GOP elected officials or GOP pundits (as well as Democratic pundits and leaders) make completely false statements in support of their point, and they are rarely called out, which is bad enough, but even after the guest leaves the show, the news anchor/reporter fails to correct it. I dount Wolf Blitzer would correct John Boehner (on air or afterwards) if he said the sun rises from the west. People are entitled to their own opinion (we should go to war, pull out etc.), but they are not entitled to their own facts. Too often facts are viewed as subject to interpretation, or worse yet those in the news business don’t even know what is a fact (i.e. Congressman Smith voted yes for the bank bail out, the bank bail out happened prior to the election of Obama, etc.), and what is opinion (the bail out didn’t help, or the bail out saved the economy). We deserve better, but unfortunately I don’t see things changing.
Iowa Democrat, the media has taken a hands off approach to fact-checking and that has allowed a lot of lies and misinformation to enter the public sphere. The Sunday shows have turned into nothing but megaphones for know-nothings like McCain and Giuliani to spout talking points without being challenged. If the news start to take the job of informing people seriously again, this is a great thing and should be encouraged.
This is a good effort, but I wonder about its long term utility. Because the spinner has already had his/her say, there is a nice soundbite with nice footage and that is what gets the play. If the news is really just about pointing a mike at one side and then the other — then where is the space for the fact-checking to get its air time?
I can’t imagine that some news head will play a Sunday news soundbite AND run its fact check too. Can you?
Not at all–considering Balloon Boy had us all riveted.
Scott P I could not agree more!!!! By the time the main stream media fact checked the lies about Kerry’s purple heart etc, it was too late, people’s opinions were formed. Even after the truth was out, these people were allowed to go on CNN and even MSNBC, and spout lies, and they were unchallenged. At times it felt as if the mainstream media was as bad as Fox! A couple years ago I was talking to a lawyer from Georgia about John Kerry (and Max Cleland) I mentioned that Kerry still has sharpnel in his leg from one of the incidents, because doctors felt it was better to keep it in than to go in and try to remove it all. The attorney does a fair amount of medical malpractice, and indicated that this should show up on X-ray, I indicated that is can be seen on X-ray, and on some show I saw an X-ray which was represented as an X-ray of Kerry’s leg. The Georgia attorney was furious that this wasn’t made public immmediately, and why as an active Democrat he just learned it (by chance) 3 years later. He was mad at Kerry’s failure to get it out. I understood the anger, but as I understood it, the networks were informed of the facts, and given access to sufficient records to disprove the claims of the front group, and they chose to sit back and present the issue as a matter of opinion, until finally it was too late!
UI I agree, but it doesn’t have to be that way. They seem to be so afraid if they really challenge the lies on air the guests won’t come back. People criticize MSNBC for not having GOP’s on their show. I don’t know how hard Olberman has tried to get GOP guests, but Maddow has repeatedly tried, and she is respectful, but not a push over when a GOP pundit or leader comes on her show, but they want to go on shows where they don’t have to back up their spin. Either because they know it’s BS, or because they know there’s so much they have no clue about, and fear their ignorance being exposed. The Bush WH pretty much black balled NBC, and as a result the lesson learned was if you’re too hard on us try booking guests.
It is a sad state of affairs when John Stewart does a better job holding people’s feet to the fire than people on the network, and cable news!
Why does John McCain feel he can actually get away with claiming he never considerd himself a maverick? My guess is he has as little respect for the mainstream network and cable news as I do!
I stopped watching the Faze the Nation shows and the commercials that pay their salaries years ago.
Unless the liars on Sunday Morning lose their jobs, they will continue to lie, no matter how much time and energy is spent fact checking and debunking
“A lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is still putting on its shoes.” ….Mark Twain
LOL, news is learning from ESPN where they fact check the hosts on Pardon the Interruption at the end of every show.
The best was when that soulless hoon, Matlin, was on Colbert and he broke out the GOP talking point bingo card.
Needless to say for the entire interview she was speechless.