Question:
What are the best ways to call out misconstrued facts in politics?
Politifact founder Bill Adair says 2012 is becoming the “year of the fact-checker.” What are the best practices for journalists to call out misconstrued facts, or outright lies, in reporting and while interviewing? What are the best ways for the public to hold reporters accountable?
How have you moved away from “he said/she said” journalism?
This is part of a series of discussions to lay groundwork for a political coverage best practices guide.
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Answers: Remember to refresh often to see latest comments!
41 answers so far.
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14catriola says:
October 27, 2012 at 3:50 pm
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Mike Fancher says:
October 2, 2012 at 12:45 pm
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Emily Harris says:
October 2, 2012 at 12:05 pm
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Rob Farley says:
October 2, 2012 at 12:19 pm
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Joe Michaud says:
October 2, 2012 at 12:24 pm
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Marsha Iverson says:
October 2, 2012 at 11:53 am
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Rob Farley says:
October 2, 2012 at 12:02 pm
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Marsha Iverson says:
October 2, 2012 at 11:48 am
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Emily Harris says:
October 2, 2012 at 11:51 am
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Marsha Iverson says:
October 2, 2012 at 12:54 pm
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David Herzog says:
October 2, 2012 at 8:49 pm
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Lisa Skube says:
October 2, 2012 at 10:38 pm
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David Herzog says:
October 3, 2012 at 5:11 pm
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Nicole Staudinger says:
October 8, 2012 at 3:04 pm
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David Herzog says:
October 8, 2012 at 4:08 pm
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Rob Farley says:
October 2, 2012 at 12:06 pm
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Emily Harris says:
October 2, 2012 at 10:59 am
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Rob Farley says:
October 2, 2012 at 11:00 am
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Emily Harris says:
October 2, 2012 at 11:01 am
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Rob Farley says:
October 2, 2012 at 11:04 am
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Emily Harris says:
October 2, 2012 at 11:04 am
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Rob Farley says:
October 2, 2012 at 11:07 am
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Emily Harris says:
October 2, 2012 at 11:08 am
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Rob Farley says:
October 2, 2012 at 11:12 am
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Rob Farley says:
October 2, 2012 at 11:15 am
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Emily Harris says:
October 2, 2012 at 11:16 am
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Rob Farley says:
October 2, 2012 at 11:17 am
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Rob Farley says:
October 2, 2012 at 11:21 am
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Rob Farley says:
October 2, 2012 at 11:22 am
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Emily Harris says:
October 2, 2012 at 11:25 am
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Rob Farley says:
October 2, 2012 at 11:31 am
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Emily Harris says:
October 2, 2012 at 11:35 am
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Rob Farley says:
October 2, 2012 at 11:35 am
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Rob Farley says:
October 2, 2012 at 11:39 am
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Ramiro Agosto says:
October 2, 2012 at 11:39 am
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Rob Farley says:
October 2, 2012 at 11:44 am
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Emily Harris says:
October 2, 2012 at 11:46 am
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Emily Harris says:
October 2, 2012 at 11:47 am
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Rob Farley says:
October 2, 2012 at 11:51 am
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Emily Harris says:
October 2, 2012 at 11:53 am
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Rob Farley says:
October 2, 2012 at 11:58 am
| ParticipantsFrom Eli Pariser in the New York Times’ “Room for Debate”
“Neil MacFarquhar’s May expose about the 32 children killed in a village in Syria appeared on page A1 of The New York Times, but got only 705 shares on Facebook. Jerry Seinfeld’s Oct. 2 letter to the editor about the word “Really?” appeared on page A26 but racked up 8,605 shares. In other words, folks on Facebook were 11 times as likely to see the Seinfeld piece as the MacFarquhar article. When it comes to public-interest reporting, we face not only a crisis of production but also a crisis of distribution..”
I think, as others have hinted, that this is a major issue when it comes to fact-checking. A major foe to effective fact-checking is consumer cherry-picking of news sources. They are passionate about their political views, maybe, but more emphasis ought to be on their resting on sound facts. Take, for instance, the CNN story about the supposed correlation between women’s ovulation cycles and their voting patterns. It was passion for facts that helped take down the bogus study. Perhaps we’re only to expect this for egregiously false reporting, but it could be the type of crusade that is beneficial nonetheless.
Sorry to miss the discussion, but I wanted to add a thought about the importance of projects like FactCheck.org. Just this morning I read a vitriolic Facebook post asserting that President Obama has signed more than 900 executives orders, some of which create forms of martial law. This is the sort of accusation that gets repeated endlessly through social media. FactCheck.org had already reported that the information is false. Its work was thorough, specific and unbiased. FactCheck.org is a wonderful resource to quickly debunk what is clearly disinformation.
I think the idea of a fact-checker’s source guide makes a lot of sense.
Rob Farley, thank you very much for sharing your knowledge here. One more piece I’d like your ideas on before this conversation switches to “slow-drip” mode. Last week, Journalism That Matters held a discussion about fact-checking and accountability. The central question: “What will it take to increase the rewards for telling the truth in politics?”
That could be answered very broadly, but from the perspective of an industry trying to find new financial sustainbility, and given the ways fact-checking itself sometimes becomes a political football, what do you think it might take to increase the rewards to media for telling, or revealing, or fact-checking the truth?
Politicians have always misled. That’s not going to change. Campaigns have shown that they are going to continue doing and saying what works, regardless of whether fact-checkers say it’s wrong. Whether campaigns are “rewarded” for telling the truth lies in the hands of an informed electorate. As for the second question, to the extent that media must remain relevant to be financially solvent, I think it’s imperative to aggressively fact-check. Fact-checking is on the rise because readers crave the truth. They want to know when they are being misled. They want to make informed choices based on facts. Who else but an independent media is going to provide that? That has value. And I think the media sources that provide independent fact-checking will be rewarded with more readers.
Thank you, Emily and Rob! This has been very enlightening.
Is it possible to fact-check the “some people are saying…” setup to biased questions?
My impression is that the “Some people are saying” questions are more of a reporter’s trick to avoid making it seem like they aren’t the ones asking the question. Probably impossible to fact check. “Some people” are saying lots of things.
Is there a reasonably handy “fact-checker’s source guide” list or site somewhere? If not, would there be value in creating one?
Marsha, are you thinking about places to go to verify facts, or steps to go through?
Emily–both. I’m the PR specialist for a public library system, and am interested in developing resources that journalists would find helpful.
We launched EconoCheck a couple of weeks ago as a resource for journalists and citizens who want to verify the economic claims made by candidates. Investigative Reporters and Editors, which I work for, and the Sunlight Foundation teamed up on the project. We provide details about how two dozen economic stats are put together and link to the source data, so journalists can download and analyze it. We hope that journalists will find it valuable during this election season and beyond. http://ire.org/resource-center/econocheck/
David, this is really slick, have journalists had the chance to begin using this yet? I’m curious if you might have any examples to share on ways independent community publishers or regional/local investigative reporting or larger legacy outlets might combine some of these data sets to surface facts and out fiction? Also curious as the project team at EconoCheck surfaced the two dozen economic indicator/data sets – how you came to choose the ones you did? We’ll (the JA) keep an eye on twitter at #EconoCheck for those who are using this great data to share how they are plugging it in!
Thanks, Lisa. We’ve been getting positive responses, but don’t have any use cases yet to pass along. Bill Allison at Sunlight and I picked the indicators based on our observations about the political discussion. Sunlight had already done a lot of deep research to compile economic indicators and IRE has longstanding experience working with some of the data sets that we mention.
Twitter stream input from Ann Alquist (@radioanngal- Director, Radio Engagement at National Center for Media Engagement):
@journaccel @davidherzog how about accelerating journalism by creating opps for people to work WITH journalists using this tool?
Ann, we’re happy to hear any ideas of how we could help.
We don’t publish such a list, but maybe we should. There are a bunch of sources that we seem to use over and over: Congressional Budget Office, the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the Library of Congress etc. Might be helpful for readers/journalists to grab those links quickly. Thanks for the suggestion!
Hello everybody, and a warm welcome Rob Farley of FactCheck.org. Today’s conversation focuses on an ethical issue that generated a lot of energy at the 2012 Poynter/Kent State media ethics workshop: fact-checking. Which I read primarily as shorthand for keeping politicians honest, and getting closer to the truth. However, there’s also an element of the public fact-checking the media in political coverage today!
This conversation with Rob is open to all – please jump in anytime. We’ll talk now for just under an hour, then this conversation goes into “slow-drip” mode. You can comment anytime and participants will get an email notification so can respond. You can send a comment to someone you think would love to respond and invite them in.
This is part of a series of discussions on ethics in political coverage, all still going on. Eventually, these discussions will be used as inspiration for a new ethical best practices guide to political coverage that Kent State will publish in 2013.
So again – hi Rob and thank you very much for being here!
Hello. And thanks for having me!
First off, building on Bill Adair’s message to the Poynter/Kent State workshop (2012 is becoming “the year of the fact-checker”), how do you see the institutionalization of fact-checking affecting a) coverage and b) campaigns?
I think we are seeing tons of dedicated fact-checking stories from the media. Which is a great trend. As for the campaigns, I’m not sure that fact-checking has much changed their messages. But we’re more focused on informing the readers than changing the rhetoric.
Why do you think the fact-checking stories are on the rise?
In part, it’s probably a function of the partisan nature of web news. It’s also true that as newspapers shrink, there are fewer people covering presidential elections and it is very difficult for daily reporters to keep up with the misinformation. So fact-checkers are filling a void.
How do you decide what facts to check – at FactCheck.org, but also, what guidelines would you suggest to any journalist?
Any time a politician says “That’s a fact” you can bet even money it’s not. But more seriously, candidates are constantly firing off statistics to underpin their arguments, and I think journalists ought always check those out. Also, when a candidate quotes his or her opponent, check out the fuller context of the comment. It’s often lifted out of context.
More generally, we try to follow the news rather than, “We checked a Democrat today, let’s check a Republican tomorrow.”
So there is clearly plenty to chose from! But what guidelines do you use to decide which statements or statistics actually are worth putting the resources toward checking out? I’d ask you to think both in practical terms, and in broader, ethical terms, as all the conversations in this series will inform a future Ethical Best Practices Guide to Political Coverage that Kent State will pull together.
Our colleagues at FlackCheck.org have an online guide for TV stations, a rundown of best practices when doing a segment about a political ad. http://bit.ly/QnvVVK
We try to stay away from the “gotcha” fact-checks when a politician has clearly misstated a figure. Generally, as I said, we try to follow the news and fact-check things that are driving the debate and campaign narratives. Particularly things that candidates are saying over and over, or are using in campaign ads. A recent Pew Research Center study found more and more, people are getting their political news directly from the campaigns, and less and less from the news media.
That’s sort of a disturbing trend. And I think the media has a heightened responsibility in this new environment to call out misinformation.
One presenter at the Kent State workshop talked about how the public views the media as part of the problem when it comes to providing coverage that is helpful (and accurate.) I have thought that the rise of fact-checking is also a response to too many “he said/she said” reports, which leave readers/viewers/listeners with only a tiny amount of information and little context. But if you can’t fact-check everything, when is he said/she said journalism okay, if ever?
That’s a great question. He-said, she-said reports are perfectly appropriate when you’re writing about political opinions. But I think journalists rely too often of the he-said, she-said formula. Many things candidates say are objectively false or misleading. A reporter ought to note the accurate information in a story, immediately. Some facts are not up for debate, and he-said, she-said reporting masks facts as opinions. The reporter isn’t “taking sides” if he or she calls points out objective information that contradicts what a politician has said.
I’d love to get your thoughts on practical tips to sussing out the facts that aren’t up for debate. But first let’s go back to just a minute ago, when you described the trend of getting info directly from campaigns “disturbing.” What specifically is disturbing about this trend to you?
And yes, fact-checking isn’t always possible. At FactCheck, we have the luxury of spending hours checking out some particular fact. The beat reporter doesn’t have that kind of time. I think that’s why you see traditional journalists citing independent fact-checkers more and more. It’s a matter of resources and time. Plus, we link to all original source documents. So people can check our math.
I was speaking specifically about voters getting most of their information directly from campaigns, not reporters, of course. It’s disturbing because such a high percentage of information coming from campaigns via ads is inaccurate or incomplete. An analysis by the Annenberg Public Policy Center found that from December 1, 2011 through June 1, 2012, 85% of the dollars spent on presidential ads by four top-spending third-party groups were spent on ads containing at least one claim ruled deceptive by fact-checkers. So if that’s where people are getting the bulk of their information, that’s disturbing.
Hi Rob, I recently listened to a segment on NPR (http://www.onthemedia.org/2012/sep/21/checking_fact_checking/) about “Checking in on Fact Checking” about how mainstream media secures the information for their stories. It delved into the issue that sometimes the fact checking process can be convoluted and challenging. Could you speak to the process a bit?
It can be challenging, and fact-checkers have to be careful about not “fact-checking” opinions. But the biggest check and balance is transparency. If you show and link to your sources — government documents, speeches etc. — people can decide for themselves if they don’t agree with your conclusions.
Rob, I guess the ethical underpinning to fact-checking is seeking the truth….What else? Do journalists have an obligation to let people know they are misinformed?
and…if people check your sources and don’t agree with your conclusions – sounds like it’s hard to establish real “facts” sometimes!
Of course. Isn’t that one of key tenets of journalism? We form opinions about policy based on facts. Democracy requires effort. Voters want to know if they are being misled so they can make informed decisions. I think that’s part of why fact-checking has become so popular of late.
To what degree though? For example, at Kent State we watched a (quite entertaining) video of Soledad O’Brien and John Sununu, Chief of Staff for the first President Bush, arguing over facts. What should journalists do in interviews when they believe facts are being misconstrued?
To your second point, the reality is that some people only want to read fact-checks that reinforce their previously held opinions. The second point I’d make is that some facts are not always black and white. So often we see that a politician takes a kernel of truth and distorts it. Or they cherry-pick data to serve their point without providing fuller context. So, often times our role as fact-checkers is to reveal the larger context of data. For example, President Obama cites employment data from the beginning of the recovery, rather than from the start of his term. Gov. Romney starts from the beginning of Obama’s term, but sometimes ignores the larger trend of the recession Obama inherited.