SteveSilver.net

Who Fact-Checks the Fact-Checkers?

Michael Kinsley attacks the fact-checking profession:

The fad for elaborate and abject corrections, and factual accuracy in general, is based on the misperception that when people complain about the media getting it all wrong, what bothers them is that the newspaper identified the mountain inside Denali National Park as Mount Denali (as it is "referred to by many," the Times defensively put it the other day) and not by its official name of Mount McKinley... What bothers people is the refusal of the Times and other papers to call President Obama a socialist or a Muslim, or to say outright that talk radio hosts are vermin. In short, most complainers tend to be ideologues whose vision of an accurate newspaper is far different from that of the professionals.

That's just the way it is, and no ombudsman can do anything about it.

Posted by Stephen Silver at September 8, 2009 07:50 PM