Wopo Calls Cortez a Liar Again

In an era when the president of the United States is an inveterate, habitual, daily liar, about all things cracking and minor, and especially near himself, fact-checking sites can provide an invaluable — if increasingly overwhelmed — public service. Though the siloing off of this cadre office of journalism still presents, I'd submit, something of a moral take a chance — the implication being that the beingness of a singled-out fact-check team alleviates political beat reporters from the responsibility of meticulously calling out spin and falsehoods on a routine footing — there are resources benefits to having a defended team focused on separating fact from fiction.

This does non mean, however, that fact-check journalism in the corporate press is free from the institutional pressures of "both sides" objectivity. Precisely because of President Trump'southward unprecedented propensity to lie, in that location can exist a latent urge amid fact-checkers to detect similar examples of dishonesty among the left, to provide some semblance of "fairness." And, at times, these efforts can devolve into obtuse, bad-organized religion examples of nitpicking and false equivalence.

Such was the instance last week, when the Washington Postran a lengthy fact-check virtually a Lord's day tweet from Rep.-elect Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Her tweet, which highlighted an academic report in an exclusive story at the Nation, drew a direct comparing betwixt $21 trillion in unsupported Defence force Section budget adjustments over an 18-year menstruation and the projected $32 trillion price of implementing Medicare for All over the side by side decade. Roughly 10 hours after — after the post went viral, racking up thousands of retweets (which is common for her) — she replied to the initial tweet with a quote from the Nation story and a clarification: "this is to say that we only demand fiscal details westward/ health+edu, rarely elsewhere."

The Post'southward fact-check headline ii days subsequently was unquestioningly blunt: "Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's $21 Trillion Mistake." So had Ocasio-Cortez simply made up the $21 trillion number? No. Invented the study? Unfairly singled out the Pentagon? Bungled the math, inaccurately dividing 21 into 36? No, no and no.

Instead, in her tweet, she had failed to properly capture the fact that the missing Pentagon coin included both inputs and outlays and, therefore, wasn't a tranche of lost funds that could've been reallocated to pay for Medicare for All, as she suggested. In fact, the Pentagon's full upkeep over those 18 years was $9 trillion. Information technology's a key distinction, but that missing nuance led the Mail serviceto laurels this "$21 trillion mistake" its worst rating for dishonesty: "Four Pinocchios."

A chip of important context: Ocasio-Cortez has drawn an extreme level of scrutiny from conservatives of late. Scouring her Twitter feed or informal video chats to single out whatsoever slip of the tongue is at present a favorite pastime of her right-wing critics. (They practise and so at their own online peril.) With her massive social media presence and ability to influence online trends, the mainstream press has taken notice as well.

In fact, this latest Postfact-check is the 2nd time the paper has singled her out in the past six months. The first time was back in August, before she had been elected to Congress, and the pedantry was strong. Amongst its very literal fact-checks, the paper judiciously rated it as "fake" when Ocasio-Cortez said in an on-air interview about unemployment: "Everyone has two jobs." Great catch, guys.

To read the Post's ain caption in this latest factcheck of Ocasio-Cortez is to realize how wishy-washy and over-the-top its "4 Pinocchios" verdict was. To eternalize its claim of egregious dishonesty, the factcheck quotes a passage about the study from the Nationslice (emphasis FAIR's):

And indeed, the plugs are found on both the positive and the negative sides of the ledger, thuspotentially netting each other out. But the Pentagon'southward accounting isand then obtuse, Skidmore and Fitts added, that information technology isimpossible to trace the actual sources and destinations of the $21 trillion.

The Postthen holds upwardly this passage as a damning indictment of Ocasio-Cortez, proverb:

Simply information technology did not appear in her tweet, which conspicuously implied that the $21 trillion could have been used to pay for 66 percent of the $32 trillion in estimated Medicare for All costs.

To recap, Ocasio-Cortez did not retrieve to include an somewhat intricate, detailed disclaimer almost the unaccounted for Defense spending — of which, again, no 1 knows how much was actually lost — in her initial 280-character tweet (though she did reference the Nationcommodity that explains those details). And her follow-up tweet, which sought to clarify and expand the point that she was talking most broad fiscal-policy priorities, did non lessen the damage in the Mail service'due south optics, considering the initial tweet withal stands.

The Mail service'due south fact-cheque farther criticizes her merits by pointing out that the two amounts aren't apples-to-apples comparisons anyway, since they embrace different time periods. This is, simply put, pure pedantry; the federal government routinely reallocates monies from one project to another over varying, different timelines. To claim this equally some other kind of "gotcha" is just airheaded. But then, the PostFact Checker already tipped its hand before this summer in its stubbornly pessimistic accept on Medicare for All, which joined a broader math-challenged disdain for it among the mainstream press, as FAIR has noted previously.

Only perhaps most noticeable about the Mail service fact-check of Ocasio-Cortez is its damning verdict. "Four Pinocchios" was warranted, the column ended, considering her "badly flawed" tweet is all the same upwardly, "probably causing confusion." Probably. And the Post even acknowledges that Ocasio-Cortez references in her tweet the actual article that gives the missing details and context. No thing.

So does all this really rise to beingness ranked amid the worst of the worst political statements? For comparing, here are a few other claims past President Trump the Posthas also rated with "Four Pinocchios":

• Trump's latest claim in a long series of patently, provably simulated boasts about the size of the crowds that attend his rallies (including, infamously, his 2017 inauguration) (11/19/xviii).
• Trump'due south series of totally uncorroborated or demonstrably fake statements viciously fear-mongering virtually the "migrant caravan" in Mexico, claiming with nothing evidence that information technology was harboring criminals, MS-13 gang members, Centre Easterners and terrorists (ten/25/18).
• Trump'southward claim of $110 billion in U.S. arms sales to Saudi Arabia during his administration, which a Brookings Institution military skilful flatly chosen "imitation news" (10/11/18). Note that this claim came more than a year after Trump returned from visiting the land and claimed the U.s. had sold them$270 billion in artillery, which the PostFact Checker (6/viii/17) simply gave "Three Pinocchios" at the fourth dimension.Huh?
• Trump'south summary dismissal of all the numerous scientific and academic estimates that thousands of Puerto Ricans died due to Hurricane Maria and its backwash as a result of the administration'due south woeful response (9/13/eighteen).
• Trump's repeating of completely untrue white supremacist propaganda that the South African government is seizing the land of white farmers (8/24/18).
• Trump'due south completely fabricated-up, oft-repeated claim that he has prompted six new steel plants to open up in the U.S. since condign president (half-dozen/28/18).
• Trump'due south xenophobic, totally backwards claim that crime is upwardly in Frg due to clearing — it's downward —andhis floating a fantastical conspiracy theory that the real numbers about immigrant crime were being covered upward (6/twenty/18).

And finally, from the very first week of his term in office …

• Trump'south outrageously false claim just after his Inauguration that millions voted illegally in the 2016 election (1/24/17).

So, according to the Washington PostFact Checker'due south journalistic calculus, all of these lies past President Trump — among many others I didn't bother to list — are merely as far removed from the truth as Ocasio-Cortez's tweet.

Make no mistake, this is an absurd false equivalence. Did she inaccurately enumerate Pentagon waste matter in a political argument? Certainly. Did she willfully, intentionally and repeatedly attempt to mislead the public, smear minorities, or traffic in racist propaganda or conspiracy theories, equally in the above examples of Trump's rhetoric? The question answers itself.

Only it is indicative of a not-so-subtle double standard to watch for going forward, especially at present that the Democrats will hold bulk ability in the Business firm. If the sheer volume of lies and misinformation out of the two parties in Washington can no longer exist reasonably equated thanks to the president'southward pathological dishonesty, and so the mainstream press' "objectivity" model will look for opportunities to match individual grades of dishonesty. Never mind that they will take to torture their ain standards of truth and good religion to do it.

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Source: https://www.salon.com/2018/12/09/fact-check-false-equivalence-washington-post-rates-ocasio-cortez-as-bad-as-trump/

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