Fact-checking the “fact-checkers”
James Taranto calls them “the Pinocchio Press”—referring, not to the Pinocchio awards they hand out when they judge a politician to be lying, but the lies they tell themselves in the supposed service of truth-telling.
I think a better term would be “Orwellian Press.” But the idea’s the same.
It’s a clever twist to write propaganda in the guise of objective fact-checking, don’t you think?
…the real problem appears to be that the useful idiots being churned out by J-school Marxists are completely unaware of the meaning of Orwellian, let alone the implications of being called “Orwellian”.
Hell: they probably take it as a complement.
These are some seriously not-too-bright marionettes.
davisbr: oh, I think they know only too well what it means. But their Cause is righteous, so it’s a feature, not a bug.
They honestly seem to be more opinion checkers than fact checkers. And, guess what, the opinions they check are “wrong”. Objectively. So there.
When you are already confidant in what the results will be, why should you be concerned with the process? The Left knows how to live your life better than you do. Do not question them, or bother them with facts.
The fourth estate as fifth columnists with a sixth sense. How does that not add up to neo-Soviet Party Organ.
Most of them should really be called “hack checkers.”
The fact checking thing is just a fad among political journalists. I will deal with them the same way I dealt with parachute pants, by calmly waiting for them to go away.
Anyway, there is one good thing about this fad: If you have separate fact checking segments in a newspaper or website, then you’re implicitly admitting that the regular news articles aren’t necessarily factual, nor are they supposed to be. And now that the factcheckers themselves turned out to be hacks, hopefully more people will realize there’s no such thing as bias free news.
@neo-neocon: oh, I think they know only too well what it means. But their Cause is righteous, so it’s a feature, not a bug.
…heh: that was just my round-about way of saying pretty much the same thing, neo in re: “complement” …it wasn’t misspelled 😉
And who would watch the watchers?
Here’s an example of bringing the bear to bay:
http://www.breitbart.com/Breitbart-TV/2012/09/04/Campaign-Spokesman-Robert-Gibbs-Grilled-By-Breitbarts-Ben-Shapiro
Yep, it’s a diss guise.