While you’re waiting for the second debate tonight, remember that 90% of the problem is people like CNN’s Julian Zelizer asking questions like this of the 2012 election:
With the presidential and vice presidential debates fully under way, and both parties claiming that their opponents are liars, websites and news shows are inundated with experts and reporters who inform voters about whether candidates are making claims that have little basis in fact.
Like the card game “B.S,” in which players call fellow players when they lie about what card has been put into the collective pile, the fact-checkers shout out to Americans when they find that politicians are injecting falsehood into the news cycle.
But it is not clear what impact the fact checkers are having on the public at large or, nearly as important, on the politicians. They keep laying out the facts and the politicians keep stretching the truth. There is little evidence that the public is outraged by any of the revelations nor that it has any real influence on how the politicians conduct themselves, other than to provide more campaign fodder for attacks on their opponents.
Shorter answer: no. What we tell you matters here at CNN, matters. And we say facts don’t mean sheeeeeeeeeeeeit. He ends thusly:
The public lives in a world where it seems impossible to know what is fact and what is partisan fiction. Fact checkers, many of whom have legitimate and virtuous objectives to get Americans to really understand the choices before them, have trouble gaining much traction. When one of the players calls “B.S.” during the political cycle, people might be listening, but it’s not clear that there are lasting consequences.
Facts are hard. Critical thought is hard. The Village makes it easy. We’ll tell you what you should believe, right after this break.
jo6pac
Yep, the so called liberal media at work. We just make up the facts and you have to believe us because we know what’s best for you on Main Street. Tell a lie enought and
rlrr
Facts are hard. Critical thought is hard. The Village makes it easy. We’ll tell you what you should believe, right after this break.
This works in a country where a large portion of the population believes the universe is ~10,000 years old and Adam and Eve rode dinosaurs to church.
Xecky Gilchrist
The public lives in a world where it seems impossible to know what is fact and what is partisan fiction.
Gosh, I wonder why.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@rlrr: Heck, most Americans believe Jesus was a Christian.
Redshift
Yes, it’s not like the media could possibly react to one candidate lying nearly nonstop by dubbing him a “serial exaggerator” or something. They just don’t have that power, you know.
rlrr
@Belafon (formerly anonevent):
A white European Christian…
Hill Dweller
CNN is a joke. Willard is running the most mendacious campaign in modern political history, but this hack still can’t bring himself to call bullshit, instead retreating to the lazy and cowardly both sides canard.
rlrr
@Redshift:
They seem to only have that power if said candidate is not actually a “serial exaggerator” or something.
Comrade Jake
When the AP “fact-checks” Bill Clinton by basically yelling “Monica Lewinsky! Monica Lewinsky!” it does not help matters.
BGinCHI
40 some % of the public knows exactly what the facts are, by watching Fox and listening to talk radio. They have all the facts they want and have no desire to check these against reality.
Another 40 some % can see that one party is taking the country off a cliff and so they are sticking with their imperfect party to get some actual governing done.
The rest act as though it’s a sporting event without their home team in it. They’ll see who looks better or has something shiny they can latch on to.
CNN? I can only guess who watches it. It can’t be anyone who can think for themselves.
Ash Can
This clown teaches at Princeton? I hope his students kick his ass all over campus for this. And DougJ (et al.) alert! He’s doing a live chat on Twitter today from noon to 12:30 ET! Go get ‘im!
Hill Dweller
@Redshift: Willard has shown complete contempt for the media, but they still can’t/won’t cover him honestly.
raven
Liar’s Poker! I used to love to watch Abdul Mufstafa Mufstafa and George Chin play this at the Bamboo Lounge!
Bulworth
Do Facts Matter?
Well, some people say yes, some people say no. But we won’t take sides. We’ll report and you decide.
Violet
I can’t imagine how this could be remedied. No idea how to fix that one at all. Throws up up hands. Too hard! Too hard!
Villago Delenda Est
What matters is that you’re entertained, preferably enough to sit through the advertising that provides the networks their revenue.
Nothing else is important.
Wag
Facts are simple and facts are straight
Facts are lazy and facts are late
Facts all come with points of view
Facts don’t do what I want them to
Facts are living turned inside out
Facts are nothing but a big mistake
invisible_hand
i think you’re misreading the article. the author is an independent scholar from princeton, and his point (at least to me) seems to be critiquing the very phenomenon in which his hosts participate, that is, giving facts a vote but not a veto.
raven
Poker for Liars
Villago Delenda Est
@rlrr:
Who spoke Elizabethan English.
rlrr
@Villago Delenda Est:
If English was good enough for Jesus…
Forum Transmitted Disease
When a jackass of a used car salesman like Mitt Romney is pulling right about half of the vote, I gotta agree with the guy from CNN. It’s obvious facts don’t matter. If they did, Mitt Romney wouldn’t get a single vote.
rlrr
@Forum Transmitted Disease:
And Al Gore would have been President…
BGinCHI
@rlrr: You can plainly see that the Apostles all had easily recognizable Anglo names.
quannlace
On MSNBC they just had the results of Scholastic’s Kid’s Poll, which has correctly predicted the presidential winner (except 2 times) since the 1940’s. And….it’s Obama.
Jay in Oregon
And you know what? If the media want to do their fucking jobs and call about where both candidates are being dishonest, I’m OK with that.
I’d like to think I know where Obama stands on the issues (for good and for ill), but if there are some crucial points that I’m misinformed on, I’d sure like to know.
But to just say “Enh, it’s politics, both sides do it, what can we do?” is a disgrace.
Ben Franklin
@rlrr:
A white European Christian…
Born on December 25th
sherparick
@Villago Delenda Est: Bingo, VDE, its all about attracting the eyeballs (which of course CNN has done a pretty bad job of the last 12 years).
Besides, “facts” are what the Village Media believes, not having any independent reality. That is why Martha Raddatz stated in one question that Social Security and Medicare are going bankrupt. Or that this week’s Economist stated that “Teachers Unions” were the big cause of U.S. inequality. If you disagree with that by pointing out the actual facts about these issues, or by pointing out that by voucherizing Medicare Paul Ryan destroys it, then you are “lying.”
...now I try to be amused
@BGinCHI:
Well, the daytime ads are pitched at old and sick people. I know this because CNN in constantly on in the break room.
BGinCHI
@…now I try to be amused: It’s like watching the world’s laziest lions hunt the world’s sickest wildebeests.
blondie
You have got to be kidding me.
SatanicPanic
Imagine if some sports writer were saying “well, the Broncos claim they got four touchdowns, while the Chargers claim two. We could tell you what we saw, but we won’t. The public lives in a world where it seems impossible to know what is fact and what is team fiction.”
Culture of Truth
I truly believe the biggest threat to our democracy is not the GOP or tea party, but the media.
I want to go on a show once so I when the host says “some say Joe Biden’s body language was too much” I can turn to the host and “you are destroying America you fucking bastard”
Ash Can
@invisible_hand: Then I for one take back what I said (I confess to only barely skimming the actual article). But I still think his live chat would be great (albeit for different reasons).
Xecky Gilchrist
@…now I try to be amused: I know this because CNN in constantly on in the break room.
Likewise at the gym I attend. People in charge of publicly-viewable TV sets seem to have this belief that CNN is some kind of universally inoffensive channel that no one will object to. I guess they’re close enough to right. I haven’t been annoyed enough with it to go ask them to change it.
But it’s sort of like news Muzak, or Nuzak.
Culture of Truth
I get what Julian Zelizer is saying, but still, CNN is a huge part of the problem.
hep kitty
S T O P I T. This is HARD — Ann Romney
Jay in Oregon
@Hill Dweller:
I find it hard to fault him for that.
If I can lie to you with impunity and have you dutifully repeat my lies—knowing I’m lying to you—and come back asking for more, why on earth should I have any respect for you?
Romney is a bully, and bullies only respect (or fear) people who stand up to them.
shortstop
@…now I try to be amused: Those evening ads on MSNBC aren’t making me feel particularly young, beautiful and vibrant, nor are they complimentary to what they suppose is my husband’s virility.
shortstop
@hep kitty: The funniest imitation of this I’ve seen is done by a rotund, 4’11” Hispanic male of my acquaintance. The expression on his face when he does it is priceless.
? Martin
OT: Where’s Mistermix’s tirade against underage labor practices after this headline: “Foxconn admits to violating Chinese law by hiring underage interns”
Oh, right:
See, it’s easy to marginalize the Apple product owners to make your point, but when it involves, well, just about every other electronics product known to man, maybe we should just walk on by.
PreservedKillick
Bullshit.
The public lives in a world where statements like that are made in a vain attempt to further your own [the media’s] relevancy. That statement boils down to “in a world where you need US to tell you what is true.”
Bullshit.
What we need is for YOU to report the facts in an unbiased manner. The actual, honest to God, FACTS. To report on the issues and not the horserace.
LanceThruster
Creating your own reality means never having to say you’re sorry to the fact checkers.
Violet
@Culture of Truth: Completely agree. If the media would do their fucking job, our democracy might have a chance.
BTW, one of the attendees at the dinner I went to last night said she was “offended” by Joe Biden’s “unprofessional behavior” at the debate. She’s a true independent voter–voted for Obama last election, has voted Republican in the past. Thinks Obama should have dumped Biden as VP. I’m not quite sure why–didn’t get that info from her.
El Cid
Is the Sun very, very large and far away? Or is it close, but very small?
It’s extremely difficult to tell for the average person. And in the end, does the difference really matter?
Judas Escargot, Acerbic Prophet of the Mighty Potato God
A pox upon the media, and everything you read.
They tell you your opinions, and they’re very good, indeed.
LanceThruster
@El Cid:
“Well, you’re obviously being totally naive of course”, said the girl, “When you’ve been in marketing as long as I have, you’ll know that before any new product can be developed it has to be properly researched. We’ve got to find out what people want from fire, how they relate to it, what sort of image it has for them.”
The crowd were tense. They were expecting something wonderful from Ford.
“Stick it up your nose,” he said.
“Which is precisely the sort of thing we need to know,” insisted the girl, “Do people want fire that can be fitted nasally?”
Culture of Truth
@SatanicPanic: Actually that reminds me a bit of those inane sports “debates” where two experts argue which team will win an upcoming game. I’m always thinking – why are you arguing about this – the game will actually be played tonight!
Hill Dweller
@Violet: Ugh. The Willard/Eddie Munster ticket is planning to completely change our society for the worse, but Biden’s perceived rudeness is the problem?
Comrade Dread
Yeah, if only we had a class of people whose job it was to report the facts.
Oh wait, we do.
So how’s about instead of having a ‘fact-checker’, you tell every journalist that works for you to say “Bullshit!” when they lie. Then you put it on the front page or as your lead story. Maybe with a nice photo of the candidate and a big headline right above them saying, “BULLSHIT!”
But that might get you nasty letters from a group of people who already hate your guts anyway, so… you know, “Both sides do it.”
Our political process is fucked. We’re fucked. The whole damn place is fucked.
Have a nice day.
Thor Heyerdahl
Pravda lives…at least Soviet citizens unlike their American counterparts knew that it was bullshit.
Culture of Truth
The irony with all the talk of closing loopholes is that Romney has taken advantage of loopholes his whole life – with the Mormon church’s corporate structure, avoiding Vietnam, his personal taxes, and of course Bain and it’s use of debt and LBOs, to, lately, the loophole in running a political campaign in which the media will obsessively cover body language or sighing or vocal inflection but will not report on a demonstrable lie.
Well played, Mitt, well played.
Kane
The Romney strategy is counting on the notion that he can repeat the lies and distortions more often than anyone can correct him. While many of his lies are noted and listed daily, much of the MSM gets tired of repeating itself. They want new in their news. Romney has lied so much and so often that he has effectively normalized his lying. The MSM then focuses on Obama, asking why he hasn’t sufficiently called out Romney’s lies. Romney’s lies become Obama’s fault, not Romneys.
It’s very much like how Republicans have normalized their obstruction to the point where it’s considered the new normal and not worthy of a story or even mentioning. The story then turns to Obama, asking what he’s going to do about it and why he has failed overcome the obstruction.
Thor Heyerdahl
@El Cid: For those people, we just need a really big magnifying glass.
YellowDog
Idiocracy is here. We don’t have to wait 500 years.
James Gary
@Judas Escargot, Acerbic Prophet of the Mighty Potato God:
Give it to the Soft Boys!
SatanicPanic
@Culture of Truth: And that’s up there with arguing about who “won” a debate, like they’re handing out trophies. Maybe they should do that. Have the winner declared and they can spray each other with champage at the end. Or in Mitt’s case, milk. It wouldn’t be any stupider than what we do right now.
PeakVT
@Xecky Gilchrist: Well, it sort of was … 20 years ago. Now the only inoffensive thing is the Weather Channel, and even that can be offensive if they talk about AGW. But people who are stuck in one place for more than 10 minutes aren’t going to tolerate the TWC.
NotMax
Hardly a new phenomenon.
Things are seldom what they seem
Skim milk masquerades as cream
[…]
Gild the farthing if you will,
Yet it is a farthing still.
[…]
Though to catch my drift he’s striving,
I’ll dissemble — I’ll dissemble;
When he sees at what I’m driving,
Let him tremble — let him tremble!
- Gilbert & Sullivan, H.M.S. Pinafore, 1878
SatanicPanic
@YellowDog: In that case I’m going to Starbucks on my lunch break
amk
@Thor Heyerdahl: Bingo.
TerryC
@Xecky Gilchrist: I don’t watch television.
A couple of years ago, on a business trip, I watched CNN for four hours in my hotel room.
Concluded that I learned about as much in 4 hours as I would by a quick skim of the NYT’s front page in 30 seconds.
Violet
@Hill Dweller: Yes, apparently. She’s woefully uninformed about issues.
She is about to have to resort to Medicaid for an elderly family member who has run out of money, and yet somehow doesn’t see the Romney/Ryan plan as a problem. She claims that the tax hit they’ll take with Obama will offset any benefit from Medicaid for her family member, so it’s a wash. She claims she “ran the numbers.” I simply can’t believe that. I know her husband has a good job, but I still can’t imagine that puts them in the 1% range of folks who would benefit from the Romney/Ryan plan.
Can anyone enlighten me on this? I don’t have enough understanding of exactly what income level would benefit from the Romney/Ryan plan and exactly how much per year Medicaid benefits are–for an apples to apples type comparison.
Bokonon
As George Orwell once wrote:
“We are all capable of believing things which we know to be untrue, and then, whene we are finally proved wrong, impudently twisting the facts so as to show that we were right. Intellectually, is possible to carry this process for an indefinite time: the only check on it is that sooner or later a false belief bumps up against solid reality, usually on a battlefield.”
The US had a whole series of battlefield moments that hit us squarely in the face during the last decade – and it seems like we haven’t learned a thing or changed a thing. In fact, the denial and magic thinking and institutional rot (in our media and public discourse) seems to have gotten worse.
And here comes CNN in the face of this, running nonstop news programming while somehow being almost completely useless as a news organization. By design. They have largely given up on reporting and truth telling – what they do is provide visuals and entertainment and controversy for people who want to see “news”. But taking sides or calling BS can cost them ratings – so they screw around, and flatter their viewers’ existing viewpoints and prejudices, and pretend that reality can be split into leftward and rightward impressions.
catclub
OT: Did anyone else notice that for the year, the stock market is up, (and up this week, so far) but had a couple of bad weeks just the past two weeks? I wonder what happened then?
Time to go check the Iowa election markets.
HRA
@Culture of Truth:
This at #48
All I know is I am overly tired of this constant spin wherever I go to get the latest news. Get it done and over with.
different-church-lady
A big part of the problem is the supposed “fact checkers” have recently discovered that facts, taken in and of themselves, are impervious to their editorial creativity. This gives them a sad, so they need to reinsert their voices into the process. Thus, facts are converted into narrative, objectivity into subjectivity.
In other words, of course the public is can’t identify what a fact is anymore: things that aren’t facts keep being presented with the label “fact.”
catclub
@Violet: “I don’t have enough understanding of exactly what income level would benefit from the Romney/Ryan plan and exactly how much per year Medicaid benefits are—for an apples to apples type comparison.”
You benefit from RR if your income is over $250k/year.
medicaid eligibility cuts off a little below that ;)
(Although I suspect it might be: Making sure grandma has no assets so medicaid will pay for the nursing home care.)
JGabriel
Zandar:
Reminds me of that old Max Headroom joke from the 80s:
.
NotMax
It’s infotainment, not news.
Were there such a thing as Truth TV, broadcasting solely verifiably accurate and impartially presented data, its ratings would be lower than an also hypothetical Watch Paint Dry channel.
Spatula
This is just a crazy thought, I know, but since we’ve LONG known the MSM is not to be trusted perhaps it would make sense for the DEMOCRATS themselves, and again this is just a wild and crazy suggestion I know…and even maybe the PRESIDENT himself to oh, maybe, perhaps, theoretically at least, CALL OUT THE LIES THEMSELVES in venues where there is at least a small chance, although of course a TINY one of those callouts being heard, like in a nationally televised live debate watched by 65 million people.
Just a thought.
amk
@NotMax: That speaks more about the denizens than the media itself, doesn’t it ?
Xecky Gilchrist
@PeakVT: Well, it sort of was … 20 years ago.
That’s true.
On reflection, I believe that these days the only people who believe it is Nuzak is people who haven’t watched it carefully since then, if ever.
The worst CNN-filler situation I found recently was when I stopped to fill up my car at a gas station I hadn’t been to before. The gas pumps had LCD screens on them, and when I started pumping, the screen switched from “insert payment card” housekeeping stuff to CNN, with the audio blaring uncomfortably loud through a speaker overhead. I’ve never been back to that station.
FlipYrWhig
@SatanicPanic: I wouldn’t mind analysis of who won a debate. I do mind when it’s done in the spirit of evaluating a community theater production of “Oklahoma!” It’s all who hit their notes, who flubbed a line, and the expressions on their faces, processed into notions of believability and confidence/aggression/virility.
Violet
@catclub:
Is this specifically true, or are there various caveats? Is the actual reality that you benefit if your income of $500K or higher, or something?
My friend has had a long and very difficult journey with this family member. I won’t go into details, but it’s not exactly like removing grandma’s assets to make sure Medicaid will pay for the nursing home. It’s a real out-of-money situation and the fact that the money has lasted this long is a true testament to my friend.
However, they are now in a difficult situation where they have to choose what to do with this family member, whether to fund the nursing home and other needs themselves or resort to Medicaid. Neither are great options–one is very expensive and the second means much lower quality of living in this red state with few benefits.
lacp
So this is what hard-hitting journamalism sounds like: “Sure, Willard’s full of shit, but what are you gonna do?”
Xecky Gilchrist
@Violet: Is this specifically true, or are there various caveats?
I haven’t run the numbers, but I’m guessing that the benefit from Romney tax cuts will really only help a very few very rich people. Everyone else will see $n tax cut and a $n*many rise in their insurance premiums in addition to service cuts that will cost them money in other ways.
Forum Transmitted Disease
@Thor Heyerdahl: No shit. How disgraceful our citizenry is.
Ben Cisco
Like a dumbass, I tried to engage this guy during the live chat.
Photon torpedoes would have had more effect, and been more satisfying to boot.
LanceThruster
@Xecky Gilchrist:
They Live.
Commenting at Balloon Juice since 1937
Sorry. I agree with the author. I see no evidence that voters pay any attention to fact checkers. Romney can say whatever he wants and his supporters don’t care. I hear is a lot of ‘former Obama supporters’ claim that he hasn’t accomplished anything. He promised to (fill in the blank) and he didn’t deliver. Really? Can you pull out a quote? Wait until Romney wins and claims that he was given a mandate to evicerate the entitlement programs. People are really not paying attention.
catclub
@Xecky Gilchrist: Check out this sunday’s (?) Doonesbury. I will say no more.
Chris
@Bokonon:
All those battlefield moments happened on the other side of the world and affected no one other than 1) American soldiers, 2) enemy combatants and 3) enemy civilians.
The average American does not fall into any of these categories, and therefore can happily go on believing whatever he wants to believe.
Culture of Truth
@Violet: I’m not sure is this helps?
http://www.romneytaxplan.com/
Walker
I honestly want to see a president start giving press passes to the Enquirer and Weekly World News and start to call on the first in the press briefings. Because they are the fact-based publications.
Forum Transmitted Disease
@Spatula: Depends on what your end goal is. Do you want to call out the media – and have them go all in 24/7 against you all the time – or do you want to get elected?
Right now the media is giving Democrats an uphill climb. Call them on their shit and that hill becomes a five-thousand foot high cliff.
I’m not saying it shouldn’t be done. Conservatives did when they finally reckoned that they had nothing to lose. I don’t know if we’re there yet or not. I do know we’re close. If Obama was actually down in the polls, I’d say do it for sure.
? Martin
@Violet: R/R doesn’t give enough details to say. But R/R appears to be very heavily tilted in favor of unearned income – stock sales, dividends, etc. for anyone under $250K are tax free. That effectively kills the point of IRAs for a certain people.
The unknown is what happens to the other benefit for that same general population – the mortgage interest deduction. Capping it is good, but that deduction is responsible for reducing most people’s AGI by between 25% and 33%. That’s a HUGE benefit, and it’s one that overwhelms the unearned income benefits above.
The group that R/R is most likely to fuck very hard are the earned income homeowners. They’re not seeing the biggest tax cut, and they might lose enough of their deductions that they wind up worse off than before – and because that mortgage interest deduction is so large, and because a mortgage is so expensive to get out of, if you were counting on that deduction to make ends meet, you’re fucked – you’re out of your house, and with that deduction gone, good luck finding a buyer because the monthly cost of buying a house just went up by whatever your tax rate is.
If Obama wants to make a broad point about the R/R tax plan, it’s that the plan is designed to reward wealth accumulation and punish work – and that seems like the very antithesis of what we should be seeking as a society.
NotMax
@amk
You betcha it does.
Violet
@Culture of Truth: Heh. I saw that earlier–very funny. I love it, but don’t think it’s a good fit for my friend, who would want actual figures.
Lurker
Well, I just donated more $$$ to BarackObama.com. I hope it helps them with the GOTV efforts.
amk
@Violet: If your friend is too lazy to look up the facts in this day and age, then may be she in all likelihood ain’t gonna be swayed by your argument.
blingee
@Culture of Truth: CNN would be part of the problem if anyone still watched them. They don’t have nearly the influence they used to. The only potential audience they have to go after are are basically Faux watchers who are all old white mostly male conservatives so that is why they are always going for the Faux lite angle.
Btw…Faux doesn’t have as much influence as they used to either…their audience has been shrinking year after year and getting older and older…an unsustainable business model.
The networks still have a much bigger combined audience than the combined cable audience. I don’t know why people obsess over CNN and Faux so much. It’s CBS, ABC, NBC that are the real movers and shakers. Of those ABC is the most pro-conservative so they are the biggest enemy imho.
Speedy
@Forum Transmitted Disease:
When a jackass of a used car salesman like Mitt Romney is pulling right about half of the vote, I gotta agree with the guy from CNN. It’s obvious facts don’t matter
Facts probably would matter if roughly half of the electorate weren’t a bunch of drooling waterheads. These are the people that make me wish on a daily basis that stupidity was debilitating and painful.
Robert Green
and here’s why my sojourn into journalism was brief. i was running a side of huffington post’s new streaming network, and i kept saying “we need to fact check in REAL TIME, not later, and not outsourced to others. it’s part of our job, part of the compact between us and our viewers.”
turned out i was the only one who believed that, even though the platform allows for it.
A moocher
@BGinCHI: Today’s internet is in the toobz, on it’s way to you.
jimmiraybob
Well, this seems like an appropriate venue…
I have made some mocking references to the Ryan/Romney tax plan as involving wishful thinking and unicorns. My view now is that the plan will work.
I have consulted leading unicornists from Yale, Princeton, Harvard, Cambridge and a number of other leading universities and they unanimously agree that the Great Unicorn does in fact exist and is a benevolent unicorn and will be supporting the Ryan/Romney tax plan. Along with delivering candies and gold bars and happiness and kittens, the Great Unicorn will also make all Democrats and Republicans and Libertarians and Catholics and Protestants and Buddhists and Muslims – men and women of all political, ideological and religious traditions and from all over the world – come together as one and will usher in a new era of world peace, equitable taxes and an end to hunger and misfortune.
I, therefore, along with the other 6 studies that have completely vindicated the Ryan/Romney tax plan, having produced my own independent study – for a total of 7 studies now available and absolutely vindicating and supporting the Ryan/Romney tax plan, have no option but to fully endorse the Ryan/Romney tax plan.
Citation: Anonymous Blog Commenter, 2012. A Study Guaranteeing that the Ryan/Romney Tax Plan Will Work Completely and Independently of Arithmetic and Empirical Facts and the Checkers of Facts.
I’m glad to have that off my mind.