Fact-checkers seem to get a lot of flak. Is this deserved?
(Image courtesy of arstechnica.com.)
In this age of fake news, ‘alternative truth’ and outright lies, sorting fact from fiction has never been more important. While nobody in their right mind has ever believed what the government or any politician says, the current climate makes that even more necessary to search for the truth. Never in the recent history of our country has it been more important to check your own facts.
Recently, fact-checking websites have been heavily attacked. (Source) I myself have been accused of running a fake news site.
This is going on all over. In September 2016, a survey found that "just 29% of all Likely U.S. Voters trust media fact-checking of candidates' comments. Sixty-two percent (62%) believe instead that news organizations skew the facts to help candidates they support." (Source)
A fellow student in my American Government class accused me of being strongly left-biased and even said, "You should get a job at CNN." (CNN is known to be strongly left-biased.)
Her accusations were a response to my claim that Snopes.com is a reliable resource, and only slightly left-biased. I also said that CNN is not fake news*, just strongly biased news. She responded, "You are fake news."
I have noticed that most opponents of fact-checking are conservatives. This may be coincidence, or it may be a sign of something else. I believe that it is a reaction to the fact that, at first, fact-checkers were more left-biased, leading to the present conservative movement of anti-factcheckers (remember, I am saying this as a strong conservative and Christian).
President Trump has made repeated (and mostly unfounded) claims of voter fraud, which Snopes and others have not hesitated to debunk. In doing so, the fact-checkers have shown some bias, but not too much, I think. However, the Right has painted them as "a bunch of criminals" who skew facts to support the Left. And some of them are. But others are not.
Of course, no news site is completely unbiased.
Politifact: minor left-bias, highly qualified
Snopes: minor left-bias, highly qualified
Dutch's Fact-checker: minor right-bias, less qualified
Media Bias/Fact Check: minor left-bias, less qualified
JustFacts.com: minor right-bias, highly qualified
Snopes puts it this way:
Of course, we don’t expect anyone to accept us as the ultimate authority on any topic. No single source, no matter how reliable, is infallible. Anyone can make mistakes. Or get duped. Or have a bad day at the fact-checking bureau.
However, unlike so many anonymous individuals who create and spread unsigned, unsourced messages across the internet, we show our work...
Research materials used in the preparation of any fact check are listed so that readers who wish to verify the validity of our information may check those sources for themselves.
Here is a list of the most reliable fact-checkers, according to MBFC.
My conclusion: Question everything, not just those you disagree with politically, and don't spread rumors. JustFacts has a great article on the bias of fact-checkers.
*Here understood as false information presented as news.
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