Democracy Dies From Bad Fact-Checking

[Uncle Joe]

The Washington Post is feeding into Trump’s agenda by turning fact-checking into an ideological weapon.

The Washington Post has fallen into the habit of accusing Bernie Sanders of misleading the public even in cases where the evidence is strongly on the side of the Vermont senator. Back in July, Post fact-checker Glenn Kessler objected to a statement Sanders made in the first debates in the Democratic presidential primaries: “Three people in this country own more wealth than the bottom half of America.” Kessler acknowledged that “this snappy talking point is based on numbers that add up.” But then he added that “it’s also a question of comparing apples to oranges.” According to Kessler, it makes no sense to compare rich apples like Jeff Bezos (who own real capital) with millions of poverty-stricken oranges (who possess only debt). In Kessler’s words, “people in the bottom half have essentially no wealth, as debts cancel out whatever assets they might have.”

Kessler’s puzzling rebuttal drew much criticism, including sharp words from John Nichols of The Nation. Simply on logical terms, it’s hard to understand why one should exclude the poor from comparisons with the rich simply because the poor have debt rather than capital. Indebtedness combined with a lack of assets, after all, is a big part of the condition of being poor. By Kessler’s reasoning, it’s impossible to compare the rich with the poor at all.

Last Wednesday, the Post took issue with a Sanders tweet that stated, “500,000 Americans will go bankrupt this year from medical bills.” The fact-checker acknowledged that Sanders was providing an accurate gloss on some of the scholarly literature on this topic, including an editorial from the American Journal of Public Health (AJPH). But the fact-checker claimed that the “AJPH editorial did not undergo the same peer-reviewed editing process as a research article.” This assertion is misleading: The editorial was appropriately peer-reviewed.

(snip)

Unfortunately, media outlets sometimes help Trump along in his desire to tarnish them as reliable independent sources of truth. The Washington Post is doing journalism no service by turning fact-checking, which should be grounded in empirical evidence, into a tool for polemical mudslinging. We need accurate, sober, well-aimed fact-checking more than ever to document Trump’s many lies—as well as the occasional false statements of other politicians (including Sanders). Unfortunately, the Post has decided to expand the parameters of fact-checking in a way that undermines the entire enterprise.

(snip)

https://www.thenation.com/article/bernie-sanders-bad-fact-checking/

[TheRealNorth]

1. It seems the powers that be

Want to hedge their bets on the Democratic candidates least likely to rock the boat.

[Uncle Joe]

3. They do hate vacuums or near vacuums

anything that stirs up the dust.

[guillaumeb]

2. Recommended.

The rich employ the media to hide how much they steal from the rest of us.

Sanders exposes this, as does Warren.

[Uncle Joe]

4. I agree guillaumeb.

[George II]

5. That is correct, but no one yet has been able to demonstrate....

....that the Washington Post fact-checking is "bad fact-checking". People have been dancing around the fringes of the fact-checking but never have zeroed in on how it was "bad".

[Uncle Joe]

6. There is nothing that can be done for you; if you don't want to see.

It's spelled out in clear detail in several OPs that I have already posted.

[George II]

8. No it isn't, not in any of them. Thanks for the insult though.

[Uncle Joe]

9. I know that you are too intelligent for it to be anything else.

[ehrnst]

10. To be fair, not seeing what's in one's own posts is your wheelhouse...

[Uncle Joe]

12. Thanks for kicking the thread ehrnst.

Peace to you.

[ehrnst]

13. You're very welcome.

I know you are desperate and seeking all the help you can get, seeing as you are always the first one to rec your own posts.

As always, Peace to you and yours.

[Uncle Joe]

14. I also recommend books, movies, restaurants, business people etc. etc.etc.

Back to "Little Joe" is it?

It would be funny if it wasn't so petty.

I must be hitting close to home in regards to media criticism.

Peace to you and yours.

[ehrnst]

15. The 'being the first to rec all your own posts' observation get under your skin?

Petty? I have no idea about what's so 'unlikeable' about Little Joe and the horse he rides in on - Cochise, I believe, was the name of his mount.



Maybe it's a generational thing. I grew up watching reruns after school, and assumed that Little Joe was an affectionate nickname. I'll refrain from now on since it clearly hits a nerve. We're adults, after all.

Peace to you and yours.

[Uncle Joe]

17. Actually no, but I am curious as to why you do not rec your own posts? I am referring to

articles, opinions, news, analysis, polls, essays, videos, etc, etc.

Peace to you and yours.

[ehrnst]

21. Sometimes I do, if it's at 4, and I think it's something that's so specifically imporant

that going to the "greatest" page would be of benefit to many, but I don't consider every single thing that I post to be so vitally urgent and valuable that I would rec it as soon as I post it to give it the appearance of such...

I think that if a post doesn't get 4 recs from others on its own merits, then it's not really "greatest page" material. Even then it might not be.

Your posts appear to be overwhelmingly marketing and publicity for Senator Sanders' campaign, or at least you consider DU to be the place someone should be placing earned media for the candidate.

Reccing a page early would certainly be a strategy to "seed" others to do so, as per viral social media strategy.

Or it appears to be simply, as I said, a desire for validation via # of recs for your posts.

Peace to you and yours.

[Uncle Joe]

22. If I didn't believe an article, opinion, video, analysis or news report

wasn't worthy of the greatest page I wouldn't post it.

My posts do overwhelmingly support my favored candidate, you might try that.

"seed," lead or get out of the way.

Peace to you and yours.

[ehrnst]

23. "seed," lead or get out of the way."

I nailed it, didn't I? The need for validation and such.

"Peace" right back at you, Joe.

[Uncle Joe]

26. No doubt there is an element of that in play, now that you mention it ehrnst!

I need to be loved, do you love me?

Peace to you ehrnst.

[ehrnst]

27. Self-awareness is always a good thing.

[Uncle Joe]

29. Thank you,

good luck with yours.

[ehrnst]

30. Lol.

Keep on trying.

[JudyM]

7. Fact checking and other reporting should be as non-ideological as possible. Disappointing to see

the media contributing to democracy’s demise.

[ehrnst]

11. You mean by fact checking a politician who seems to believe he is exempt?

I expect that from Trump - or Nixon - not a Democrat.

[LanternWaste]

16. Bernie's Oppression is quickly becoming its own industry.

I get it... Pet Rocks were popular in the seventies.

[mathematic]

18. First Jacobin and now The Nation?

These publications are trash. Utter trash. They're both hotbeds of russian trutherism. They wouldn't know a fact if one drove a tank through the town square.

[Uncle Joe]

19. Trump would never had stood a chance in trashing the media and have it resonate

so well with his base and to some extent beyond, had the media not been so compromised by over conglomeration and the obvious adverse repercussions our nation has felt for the past near 40 years.

Trump is a demagogue in his attacks against the press as in "enemy of the people" and "fake news" but the media has set itself up for both his rise and attacks against them.

Concentration of media ownership (also known as media consolidation or media convergence) is a process whereby progressively fewer individuals or organizations control increasing shares of the mass media.[1] Contemporary research demonstrates increasing levels of consolidation, with many media industries already highly concentrated and dominated by a very small number of firms.[2][3]

Globally, large media conglomerates include Bertelsmann, National Amusements (Viacom Inc. and CBS Corporation), Sony Corporation, News Corp, Comcast, The Walt Disney Company, AT&T Inc., Fox Corporation, Hearst Communications, MGM Holdings Inc., Grupo Globo (South America) and Lagardère Group.[4][5][6]

(snip)

Risks for media integrity

Media integrity is at risk when small number of companies and individuals control the media market. Media integrity refers to the ability of a media outlet to serve the public interest and democratic process, making it resilient to institutional corruption within the media system, economy of influence, conflicting dependence and political clientelism.[9] Media integrity is especially endangered in the case when there are clientelist relations between the owners of the media and political centres of power. Such a situation enables excessive instrumentalisation of the media for particular political interests, which is subversive for the democratic role of the media.

Elimination of net neutrality

Net neutrality is also at stake when media mergers occur. Net neutrality involves a lack of restrictions on content on the internet, however, with big businesses supporting campaigns financially they tend to have influence over political issues, which can translate into their mediums. These big businesses that also have control over internet usage or the airwaves could possibly make the content available biased from their political stand point or they could restrict usage for conflicting political views, therefore eliminating net neutrality.[8]

(snip)

Diversity of viewpoints

It is important to elaborate upon the issue of media consolidation and its effect upon the diversity of information reaching a particular market. Critics of consolidation raise the issue of whether monopolistic or oligopolistic control of a local media market can be fully accountable and dependable in serving the public interest.

Freedom of the press and editorial independence

On the local end, reporters have often seen their stories refused or edited beyond recognition. An example would be the repeated refusal of networks to air "ads" from anti-war advocates to liberal groups like MoveOn.org, or religious groups like the United Church of Christ, regardless of factual basis. Journalists and their reports may be directly sponsored by parties who are the subject of their journalism leading to reports which actually favor the sponsor, have that appearance, or are simply a repetition of the sponsors' opinion.[unreliable source?][10][11][12]

(snip)


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concentration_of_media_ownership

[mathematic]

20. Is your reply meant to distract from the fact that Jacobin and The Nation are trash?

Just wondering. Unlike The Nation, nobody's wondering which Washington the Washington Post refers to.

[ehrnst]

24. Yes, it is. Also known as the red herring fallacy...

or "double standard" when one drops their righteous objection to "corporate media conglomeration" sources when such a source confirms one's bias.

[ehrnst]

28. That was Nixon's tactic as well when WAPO wasn't simply taking dictation from him, wasn't it?

Shoot the messenger? Say they were "out to get him."

https://longreads.com/2018/11/08/when-richard-nixon-declared-war-on-the-media/

The distrust filtered throughout his administration: As vice president, Spiro Agnew was instructed to give speeches attacking the media, referring to reporters, editors, and publishers as “small and unelected elite” who possess “broad…powers of choice” and “decide what forty to fifty-million Americans will learn of the day’s events in the nation and the world.” According to Agnew, there was “a widening credibility gap…between the national news media and the American people.”

[ehrnst]

25. +1000. (nt)