Saturday, December 14, 2013

Writing Opinion Pieces and Calling it Fact-Checking

PolitiFact's 2013 Lie of the Year Was Half True in 2012 - Hit & Run : Reason.com: As Suderman points out, Politifact went from rating the statement as true in 2008, to half true in 2009 and 2012, to now, not only a lie, but the lie of the year. The statement didn't change, but Politifact's evaluation of whether it was a lie or not did change.

There is a case to be made for cutting Politifact some slack in 2008 when Obama was merely describing the bill he planned to write and pass--though even then it seems unfair to rule out as simply not true the argument of Republicans that the plan as Obama described it would necessitate the ending of many plans--but it is hard to explain their 'half-trues' after the bill was written and then passed as anything other than politically biased defense of the Obama administration.

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