4 ms·

If you check Politifact http://www.politifact.com/ http://www.politifact.com/ you'll find that most of what Clinton says is mostly true, whereas practically eve

by scholia 10y ago

If you check Politifact http://www.politifact.com/ http://www.politifact.com/ you'll find that most of what Clinton says is mostly true, whereas practically everything Trump says is mostly false. Fox, like Trump, doesn't feel the need to tell the truth. MSM (1) generally does. (1) For Facebook, MSM means: "BBC News, CNN, Fox News, The Guardian, NBC News, The New York Times, USA Today, The Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Yahoo News or Yahoo."

protomyth 10y ago
Politifact isn't seen as nonpartisan. The Tampa Bay Times is the parent org and they have not endorsed any Republican candidates for President. They are a liberal newspaper and that is reflected in their fact assessments.
- jonathankoren 10y ago
  Well, reality has a well known liberal bias.
  - rdancer 10y ago
    If that were so, would liberal arguments need to turn to unsourced verisimilitudes?
avatar299 10y ago
Politifact is not a neutral source. They might as well be ran by the DNC
- scholia 10y ago
  Seems to be a reliable source, or it wouldn't be so widely quoted or so widely respected. It's actually a story if it gets something wrong... http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/politifact-is-wrong-cruz-is-right-trump-did-say-government-should-pay-for-everybodys-healthcare/article/2585449 http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/politifact-is-wrong-cruz-i...
  - nommm-nommm 10y ago
    One can be correct and biased at the same time.
    - scholia 10y ago
      One can be correct and have an opinion at the same time. They're not the same thing. Even if you don't agree with an opinion, that doesn't make it wrong. You may be even more biased the other way. If you are not correct, then your opinion is not worth very much. See: birthers, anti-vaxxers, chemtrails, intelligent design, faked moon landing conspiracists etc.
rdancer 10y ago
Politifact's parent organization, Tampa Bay Times, is part of the MSM, and not a third-party watchdog. It is incredible that they have brought fact-checking into the mainstream, but their ability to have done that is at least in part thanks to their being a part of it. Anyway, they don't provide stats grouped by people (EDIT: they do, my bad!). Fact-checking cannot provide the kind of metric you talk about for rhetorical devices that are not drily descriptive, such as irony, hyperbole, allusion, etc. It helps that the readers have a way to look up the facts if they don't know them, but the analyses need to be read critically, same as the original statements. It's no good if you distrust one set of people and uncritically trust another. On what basis? You don't trust the politician, that's good. You don't trust some media, that's also good. But whoever in the media you choose, don't trust them blindly, they are just normal people, not superheroes. Take, for example, this statement: http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2016/may/08/donald-trump/donald-trump-wrongly-says-noncitizens-can-vote-whe/ http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2016/may/... There is no clear-cut right or wrong. Same-day voter registration puts a pressure on the bureaucracy to be more forgiving and less thorough; that's a fact. But is that driven by the political elements who benefit from illegals voting, and do people on either side actually believe that it has an effect? That's not a factual question, that's a question for a political debate. Mr Trump's hyperbole captures this with a surprising pith.
- scholia 10y ago
  > Anyway, they don't provide stats grouped by people, so that assertion is based on what? The certainly do. You can see that Trump is telling the truth 2% of the time and is mostly true only 6%. Most of his claims are not true. http://www.politifact.com/personalities/donald-trump/ http://www.politifact.com/personalities/donald-trump/ For comparison, Hillary Clinton rates true (23%) or mostly true (27%) http://www.politifact.com/personalities/hillary-clinton/ http://www.politifact.com/personalities/hillary-clinton/ > There is no clear-cut right or wrong. Trump's claim was analyzed. Independent experts were consulted. It's obvious why the ruling went against him. I don't think distinguishing between hyperbole and lies is Politifact's problem. It's simply calling a lie a lie. I appreciate that Trump tells lies for political advantage, and that most politicians do the same. However, Trump is in a different league from Clinton, just as the NYT is in a different league from Fox News.

by scholia 10y ago

protomyth 10y ago

Politifact isn't seen as nonpartisan. The Tampa Bay Times is the parent org and they have not endorsed any Republican candidates for President. They are a liberal newspaper and that is reflected in their fact assessments.

jonathankoren 10y ago
Well, reality has a well known liberal bias.
- rdancer 10y ago
  If that were so, would liberal arguments need to turn to unsourced verisimilitudes?

avatar299 10y ago

Politifact is not a neutral source. They might as well be ran by the DNC

scholia 10y ago
Seems to be a reliable source, or it wouldn't be so widely quoted or so widely respected. It's actually a story if it gets something wrong... http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/politifact-is-wrong-cruz-is-right-trump-did-say-government-should-pay-for-everybodys-healthcare/article/2585449 http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/politifact-is-wrong-cruz-i...
- nommm-nommm 10y ago
  One can be correct and biased at the same time.
  - scholia 10y ago
    One can be correct and have an opinion at the same time. They're not the same thing. Even if you don't agree with an opinion, that doesn't make it wrong. You may be even more biased the other way. If you are not correct, then your opinion is not worth very much. See: birthers, anti-vaxxers, chemtrails, intelligent design, faked moon landing conspiracists etc.

rdancer 10y ago

Politifact's parent organization, Tampa Bay Times, is part of the MSM, and not a third-party watchdog. It is incredible that they have brought fact-checking into the mainstream, but their ability to have done that is at least in part thanks to their being a part of it. Anyway, they don't provide stats grouped by people (EDIT: they do, my bad!). Fact-checking cannot provide the kind of metric you talk about for rhetorical devices that are not drily descriptive, such as irony, hyperbole, allusion, etc. It helps that the readers have a way to look up the facts if they don't know them, but the analyses need to be read critically, same as the original statements. It's no good if you distrust one set of people and uncritically trust another. On what basis? You don't trust the politician, that's good. You don't trust some media, that's also good. But whoever in the media you choose, don't trust them blindly, they are just normal people, not superheroes. Take, for example, this statement: http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2016/may/08/donald-trump/donald-trump-wrongly-says-noncitizens-can-vote-whe/ http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2016/may/... There is no clear-cut right or wrong. Same-day voter registration puts a pressure on the bureaucracy to be more forgiving and less thorough; that's a fact. But is that driven by the political elements who benefit from illegals voting, and do people on either side actually believe that it has an effect? That's not a factual question, that's a question for a political debate. Mr Trump's hyperbole captures this with a surprising pith.

scholia 10y ago
> Anyway, they don't provide stats grouped by people, so that assertion is based on what? The certainly do. You can see that Trump is telling the truth 2% of the time and is mostly true only 6%. Most of his claims are not true. http://www.politifact.com/personalities/donald-trump/ http://www.politifact.com/personalities/donald-trump/ For comparison, Hillary Clinton rates true (23%) or mostly true (27%) http://www.politifact.com/personalities/hillary-clinton/ http://www.politifact.com/personalities/hillary-clinton/ > There is no clear-cut right or wrong. Trump's claim was analyzed. Independent experts were consulted. It's obvious why the ruling went against him. I don't think distinguishing between hyperbole and lies is Politifact's problem. It's simply calling a lie a lie. I appreciate that Trump tells lies for political advantage, and that most politicians do the same. However, Trump is in a different league from Clinton, just as the NYT is in a different league from Fox News.