Of Course, the GOP Thinks Fact-Checkers Are Biased

[Nevilledog]

https://washingtonmonthly.com/2020/08/04/of-course-the-gop-thinks-fact-checkers-are-biased/

With a president that has told over 20,000 lies, and massive disinformation campaigns being waged both domestically and from foreign entities attempting to interfere in U.S. politics, the role of fact-checkers has become critical in sorting out what to believe. But perhaps you’ve had the experience of providing information from fact-checkers to Trump supporters only to get a response from them that is dismissive because it comes from so-called “biased media.” That pretty much encapsulates why the partisan divide in America is almost impossible to bridge.

Right-wing reporter Sheryl Attkisson has written a piece that is designed to give Trump supporters permission to dismiss fact checks. It is titled, “The Troubling Fact Is That Media Fact-Checkers Tend to Lean Left.” She claims that checking facts is basically illusory.

Many such efforts fail because they amount to a circular feedback loop of verification. The fact checkers are like-minded journalists or often liberal Silicon Valley gatekeepers, who frequently rely on partisan news sources and political activists to control narratives on a wide variety of issues and controversies.

Right out of the gate, Attkisson uses the example of Twitter adding a fact-checking label to a Trump tweet in which the president claimed that widespread use of mail-in ballots would lead to substantial fraud. In response, Attkisson writes that “the United States, in fact, has a long and ongoing history of ballot fraud.” If you check her links, you’ll find two articles from the conservative site RealClearPolitics and one archived article from the New York Times about how Lyndon Johnson engaged in voter fraud back in 1948 (I kid you not!).

*snip*

[thucythucy]

1. "Reality has a well known liberal bias." NT