A couple of key points are worth mentioning.
1. The rise of fact checkers in the professional media reflects the rise of extremely aggressive dark free speech tactics in politics. Often social media amplifies its power to deceive, distract and divide. In response, newsrooms are reorganized to do aggressive fact checking and to be more assertive about calling out lies and deceit in real time. The media knows it has lost much public trust, much of which is undeserved. Media distrust is significantly based on dark free speech intended to undermine facts and truths that for-profit propagandists, tyrant wannabes, ideologues and kleptocrats want to suppress. Intense fact checking is the media's attempt to regain some public trust and to try to show the public that finding and defending fact and truth is a critically important service to the public interest.
The point is this: US professional media has flaws and weaknesses, e.g., corporate ownership and a for-profit morality. Despite that, flawed media is better than either no media or propaganda sources like Breitbart, Fox News or the president himself.
2. The burden on the media is enormous. The public has lost, or never had, a good grasp of how to defend itself against the dark arts of sophisticated deceit, lies and unwarranted, intense emotional manipulation that divides, distracts and foments bigotry and distrust. All of those emotional responses play into the hands of liars, ideologues, authoritarians and kleptocrats. Dark free speech-driven benefits to them usually come at the expense of the public interest.
Martin Baron, executive editor at the Washington Post reflected on the burden and complexity of trying to defend a significantly defenseless society from relentless attacks:
“How do you address beliefs, when they're not rooted in reality? How do you tell someone, ‘I'm trying to treat your fears seriously. But your facts don't exist?’ How, as individuals, and how, as a country? Like, this is a challenge. Like, this reminded me of Sharia law, right? There would be all these, ‘Sharia law's coming.’ And you're like, ‘It's not.’ And you would try to reassure -- there's nothing like that. And yet, you're like, ‘There's no facts here to support it.’ .... We live in an environment where people are able to spread crazy conspiracy theories and absolute falsehoods and lies. And that's made possible by the internet and social, social media. And people are drawn to sources of information, so-called information, that confirms their preexisting points of view. And you know, that's what's contributing to this environment that we have today. .... But we still have the responsibility for, for determining what's, what’s true and what's false and, in particular, holding our government officials accountable for what they say and telling people whether they're telling the truth, or they're not telling the truth. That's fundamental to the responsibilities that we have as a journalistic institution.”
3. Although the president has made over 15,000 false or misleading statements since coming to office, an astounding 91% of Trump supporters said he is the source they rely on for accurate information. Fact checks are irrelevant. This is what the president wants and reinforces it by calling the press the enemy of the people and urging the public to reject everything the press (and courts, historians and scientists) asserts as fact with the exception of facts that are favorable to the president and his agenda. In history, this is what it looks like when a tyrant-kleptocrat wannabe makes a run at power and attempts to destroy a democracy in the process. Our president is no different than past tyrant-kleptocrats making a run for power.
4. The press is waking up to the fact that it needs to be much more aggressive about defending truth and democratic institutions, which includes being more transparent and showing as much raw information as possible in an attempt to win some public trust in the face of the tyrant wannabe’s vicious attacks on the press, facts and the truth.
Thanks to Susan for bringing this to my attention. 😊
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