Late Night Video — Ginger Gibson on the Fact Checker Hotseat
Former NJ reporter Ginger Gibson was on Reliable Sources on Sunday speaking to their stand in media critic (Frank Senso), who asked her what she did with the factchecking that gets produced by the various organizations doing this. She told him she ignored it, and we’re off to the races:
She’s asked what she would do with a fact check that says that someone in one of her stories is shown to have been wrong and she says — mostly nothing. Which I get, I suppose — the fact check is after her reporting and few (if any) news organizations will go back to talk about who gave them faulty information. You can hear her hide the business of wrong information in the category of “political fighting” — which is pretty sad when you learn that there really are no death panels and leave that bad information out there until you can point to fact-checking next time you hear the claim. This isn’t as bad as Chuck Todd’s claim that pointing out lies is not his job. But it is still more reason – directly from one of its practitioners – to distrust what the media serves up.
Tags: Ginger Gibson, Late Night Video, Media
We really raised her right.
It’s really no different than blogging. Everyone reports the facts as they see it. Maybe one doesn’t know they were mis-informed? What is supposed to happen is that someone posts a link proving it not true and a conversation is started. Everyone sees it unfold in real time and truth is suddenly “outed”.. It has happened on this site many times.
Consequentially, someone that is caught lying on purpose, is ridiculed extensively which pretty well nullifies any impact they are trying to create. Breitbart is a current example. Red State as well. Baghdad Bob is a third…..
In today’s world, is it senseless to go back and pull a story because it is out there forever. Better to let the comments prove the story true or not. Furthermore other authors will be quick to capitalize on any errors you may have made… That’s the theory of the open press.
In Ginger’s case, by the time the story is published, she is finalizing three other stories about to go live… Time restraints cause one to juxtapose “is this the absolute truth” with “is this the absolute truth as I know it right now”… I appreciate her honesty about going back in time…. We shouldn’t hold her to a higher standard than we hold ourselves…
It’s really no different than blogging. Everyone reports the facts as they see it.
Well, that’s a whole lot of FAIL, right there. Sheesh.