In previous blogs I had discussed the difficulty of sorting thru all of the various fact gatherers and keepers of information to get at the truth. I also referred to M. Neil Browne and Stuart M. Keeley who in their book “Asking the Right Questions – A Guide to Critical Thinking” were they have stated that “we have been dismayed by the degree to which students and citizens in general increasingly depend on “experts” “in helping to find the truth.
M. Neil Browne and Stuart M. Keeley wrote their book in 1994 with updates thru 2007, long before the current level of influence Fact Checkers have attained. This level of influence had not gone without criticism.
In August of 2011, Ben Smith writing for Politico (which many consider on the liberal side of the political spectrum) stated, “ The new professional “fact-checking” class is, at its best, doing good, regular journalism under the pseudo-scientific banner, complete with made-up measurements. At their worst, they’re doing opinion journalism under pseudo-scientific banners, something that’s really corrosive to actual journalism, which if it’s any good is about reported fact in the first place.”
Note Smith’s point on reporting the facts as being primary.
Going further, in January of 2012, Greg Marx of the Columbia Journalism Review wrote, “In fact, the sights of the broader fact-checking movement often seem to be set on something different than strict truth and falsehood.”
He further states regarding fact checkers and the fact checking environment at the time of his writing, 2012, “But I think the situation also reflects exactly what critics like Hemingway and Greenwald allege: fact-checking, as practiced, is in part an effort to shape the public political discourse; the fact-checkers have set their sights on identifying not only which statements are true, but which are legitimate.”
In March of 2017, Barbara Joanna Lucas of the Capital Research Center wrote, “What liberal journalist Ben Smith wrote five years ago of fact checkers is even more true today: “At their worst, they’re doing opinion journalism under pseudo-scientific banners, something that’s really corrosive to actual journalism, which if it’s any good is about reported fact in the first place” (Politico, Aug. 17, 2011).”
In an editorial for Investor’s Business Daily dated August 2, 2018 the staff wrote, “The problem is that fact checkers themselves can be unreliable sources for what’s true or not. Fact checkers make their own mistakes. They sometimes change ratings based on new information. Or they make determinations based on arbitrary standards that can change from one review to the next.”
I’ll take a pass at fact-checkers as being the arbiters of truth.
The search for the truth continues.
Your constructive comments are welcome.
The Fair-minded Thinker