1/ Let me "fact-check" the very idea of fact-checking.
I have great contempt for fact-checkers. Here's why.
When people claim to do a fact-check of some claim, what they purport to do is to test it against objective evidence in order to determine whether it is true.
I have great contempt for fact-checkers. Here's why.
When people claim to do a fact-check of some claim, what they purport to do is to test it against objective evidence in order to determine whether it is true.
2/ The problem is that the claims they are "fact-checking" are usually ambiguous: they are open to many interpretations. It's easy to show a claim to be false; you merely have to pick an interpretation according to which it is false. That is usually not hard.
3/ Among academics who pride themselves on their intellectual fairness, there is a basic principle, the principle of "charity," according to which you choose an interpretation of your opponent's claim based on which possible interpretation is most likely to be true.
4/ The stupid, biased political fact-checkers seem to use the opposite method; they typically employ a principle of uncharity. They typically construe President Trump's claims, in particular, according to the most outrageous or uncharitable interpretation.
5/ Skilled, professional fact-checkers—so, not most of the partisans *called* fact-checkers—are very much aware of these issues. They explicitly discuss issues of interpretation and offer different truth evaluations based on different possible interpretations.
6/ If a fact-checker is consistently uncharitable to one side, he is profoundly hypocritical. After all, his very job presumes a special concern about the truth, and yet he ignores the most basic interpretive requirements of his job in the service of...partisan politics.
Sad.
Sad.
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