Writers and Editors

Aug 30, 2012 11:03 AM EDT

Add to that 4thEstate.net, which replaces anecdote and speculation with visual intelligence based on statistical analysis. For example: Liberal media bias: fact or fiction?

- Pat McNees

Aug 31, 2012 8:25 AM EDT

Facts Take a Beating in Acceptance Speeches (Michael Cooper, Check Point, NY Times, 8-31-12). "The two speeches [Romney's and Ryan's] — peppered with statements that were incorrect or incomplete — seemed to signal the arrival of a new kind of presidential campaign, one in which concerns about fact-checking have been largely set aside." "One of Mr. Ryan’s most pointed attacks on Mr. Obama was on the deficit. 'He created a new bipartisan debt commission,' Mr. Ryan noted. 'They came back with an urgent report. He thanked them, sent them on their way and then did exactly nothing.'”Left unsaid: Mr. Ryan served on that commission himself, and his opposition to its final proposals helped seal its fate. The panel, known as the Simpson-Bowles deficit commission, made a number of recommendations that Mr. Ryan ultimately opposed on the grounds that they would have raised some taxes while failing to cut enough from health programs. His dismissal of the plan was seen as a significant blow to its chances of success, since it soured other House Republicans on it."Real the whole article for point-by-point corrections of inaccuracy and untruths.

- PM

Sep 06, 2012 10:18 AM EDT

Fact-checking: What exactly are we debating again? (Erik Wemple, Washington Post 9-5-12). First in "an endless, tireless, exhaustive series of blog posts on the fact-checking industry." And I quote: “We’re not going to let our campaign be dictated by fact-checkers.,” declared Mitt Romney pollster Neil Newhouse last week. FactCheck.org Director Brooks Jackson last night told me that editors across the industry more or less freaked out upon hearing that salvo. Says Jackson: “Neil Newhouse stated it out loud. The obvious attitude of the Obama campaign and the Romney campaign has forced news editors to pay attention to this.”

- PM

Sep 06, 2012 10:22 AM EDT

Fact check: A look at Bill Clinton's speech (Detroit Free Press, 9-6-12, the day after Clinton's speech at the Democratic convention)

- PM

Sep 18, 2012 7:12 AM EDT

#presspushback (Jay Rosen's PressThink).

- PM

Sep 18, 2012 7:18 AM EDT

He Said, She Said, and the Truth (Margaret Sullivan, The Public Editor, NY Times, 9-16-12)

- PM

Sep 20, 2012 8:28 AM EDT

The Two-Way (National Public Radio's news blog, which invites conversation). For example: What We Know About 'Sam Bacile,' The Man Behind The Muhammad Movie , which reveals that Bacile is a made-up name and he is not a Jew, that the inflammatory Yahoo "sample" was dubbed over (and that the actors hired to create the film were deceived about its purposes), that Coptic Christians were involved, and that to some extent it was probably a disinformation campaign.

- PM

Nov 01, 2012 11:59 AM EDT

Can I get a fact check before retweeting that awesome Hurricane Sandy picture? (Alex Hern, New Statesman, 10-30-12)

- PM

Nov 01, 2012 12:02 PM EDT

Emergency information response is a public service we can coordinate through real-time verification (Craig Silverman, Regret the Error, Poynter 11-1-12). Here is the page Atlantic Magazine put up of Instasnopes: sorting the real Sandy photos from the fakes.

- PM

Feb 27, 2012 3:24 PM EST

More on the same subject:The Fact-Checker Versus the Fabulist (Gideon Lewis-Kraus, 2-21-12) and Writer vs. Fact-Checker: This Time, It’s Personal (The 6th Floor blog, Eavesdropping on the Times Magazine 2-22-12)D'Agata teaches nonfiction writing at the University of Iowa Creative Writing Program.

- PM

Mar 10, 2012 6:35 AM EST

I have written about this issue on my own blog, and, guiltily, less tolerantly than you. As you note, About a Mountain "blends his reporting and storytelling," and there's a lot of reporting, giving the impression that it is factual, and it mostly is. But he does weird things that are unnecessary in my view, as if to make a point. But I don't get the point, unfortunately. Maybe because I was a reporter. I am not a stickler, since his admitted composite characters and events in the service of good storytelling don't bother me. Some things do.

- Richard Gilbert

Mar 12, 2012 9:38 AM EDT

An interesting follow-up piece: What Do Fact-Checkers and Anesthesiologists Have in Common? (David Zweig, The Atlantic, 3-1-12). Understanding why some people choose professions where accomplishments go unheralded. Here's a sample: "IN A CULTURE that favors sensation, the fact checker is an anomaly, perhaps even anathema. He is the brakes on editors and writers racing toward deadline intent on dazzling readers at the expense of edifying them. He is the schoolmarm tsk tsking. He is the public defender for the unrepresented, the downtrodden, the forgotten—the facts." An excellent description of this important position follows, and more broadly is linked with other "Invisibles," who get public notice generally only when things go wrong: anesthesiologists ("they share the same fastidiousness, inner pride of their work, and joy of behind-the-scenes power"), piano tuners (imagine good concerts without them, but do they take a bow?), and graphic designers ("great design often shouldn't call attention to itself").

- Pat McNees