FIRST RULE OF POLITICS: NEVER LET FACTS GET IN THE WAY OF A GOOD OPINION

[defrog]

NPR has an interesting story about PolitiFact Texas – the local branch of PolitiFact run by the Austin American-Statesman – and how it’s fast becoming a pain in the ass for politicians.

Just ask Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst, whose claims about the kidnap rate in Phoenix, AZ being the second-highest in the world next to Mexico City were checked by PolitiFact Texas and declared to be false on its “Truth-o-meter”.

Dewhurst’s response speaks volumes:

"This is regrettably a new low for the Austin American-Statesman and for this particular group," Dewhurst told NPR. "It shouldn't be in the newspaper. It should be on the editorial page. I mean, for heaven's sake."

In other words, a fact is just a matter of opinion. Or in the case of Dewhurst, anything he says is fact, and if you disagree with his facts, that’s opinion.

Well, of course. And that, children, is why Fox News is the most popular source of news in all the land.

One thing that strikes me about the growing popularity of PolitiFact and similar sites like FactCheck.org (which I’ve endorsed in the past) – apart from the comically desperate attempts by politicians and pundits on both sides to dismiss them as being biased fronts for the opposition – is that these sites basically do what actual journalists are supposed to be doing in the first place.

To be fair, I understand why so many don’t when it comes to stories about what Politician X said that day: they’ve got insane deadlines, and after all, they’re just reporting what Politician X said, and it’s a fact that Dewhurst declared Phoenix the kidnapping capital of America. So, you know, close enough. We report, you decide, etc.

Amother reason, says Gardner Selby, a reporter and editor for the PolitiFact Texas desk, is that many journalists worry that if they question the accuracy of a politician’s statement in their story, they’ll be accused of losing their journalistic objectivity. In other words, it's their job to report what politicians say, not verify the accuracy of what they say.

In which case I would refer them to this quote from Hunter S Thompson:

I don't get any satisfaction out of the old traditional journalist's view -- "I just covered the story. I just gave it a balanced view." Objective journalism is one of the main reasons American politics has been allowed to be so corrupt for so long. You can't be objective about Nixon. How can you be objective about Clinton?

Just the facts, ma’am,

This is dF

Comments

[puffdoggydaddy.livejournal.com]

When arguing with Texas Republicans, some of whom I am related to, I've discovered that facts when I present them are opinion, but opinions when they present them are facts.

...and nary the twain shall meet.

[layla-aaron.livejournal.com]

It's sad to see how the political bias of the PTBs at a media source now seeps into the delivery of news. I know that it has been like this since the inception of news reporting, but it really seems like it's worse now than it once was. Granted, my experience with working for the news media was in writing general interest news stories and obituaries, and political bias does not tend to bleed into that.