Checking In on Fact-Checking

Author

Bubba
08 Oct

Fact-checking is undergoing a bit of a legitimacy crisis. (Pirate Wires)

The controversy: During the Trump-Harris debate last month, Republicans said the real-time fact-checking from moderators disproportionately targeted Donald Trump.

  • It was Democrats’ turn to complain when CBS announced it would not engage in real-time fact-checking during the vice presidential debate between J.D. Vance and Tim Walz on Oct.1. (CBS moderators did end up fact-checking Vance.)

  • Republicans then accused Democrats and the media of hypocrisy after mainstream fact-checkers virtually ignored Walz’s erroneous claim that the First Amendment doesn’t protect “hate speech” or yelling “fire.”

Reason assistant editor Emma Camp:

It's a common misconception that shouting "fire" in a crowded theatre isn't protected by the First Amendment—a myth that originates from a hypothetical used in Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes' 1919 Supreme Court opinion in Schenk v. United States.

Related: As liberals’ concerns about right-wing disinformation ramp up, so too has the business of combatting the problem, according to a recent Pirate Wires analysis.

  • Since 2016, misinformation-fighting startups have raised over $300 million, with governments as their main customers.

  • NewsGuard, which has been known to pressure advertisers into blacklisting outlets it deems untrustworthy, has raised $21 million.

  • The Department of Defense awarded Peraton a $979 million contract in 2021 to counter misinformation.

National Review staff writer Jeff Blehar:

I think it’s well beyond time we dispensed with the trope of the “fact-check” altogether. It’s abundantly clear at this point that it is beloved by legacy media types because it fortifies their bias with the veneer of authority, not because it offers any serious truth value — the mere laundering of opinion into “expert fact” to wield as a tool in shaping the contours of public debate. (I rate my assertion “Mostly True.”)