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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsWhat to Do With Political Lies?
Yes! I wholeheartedly agree. The only thing I would add is that, based on the research of Brendan Nyhan and others, we know these things need to be phrased in the positive, or else the myth gets reinforced. In other words, "Obama, who is a Christian,..." is better than "Obama, who is not a Muslim,..."
Fact-checkers are no longer enough: If lies are going to be repeated, the truth needs to be, too.
Fact-checking was a great development in accountability journalism -- but perhaps it's time for a new approach. It's no longer enough to outsource the fact-checking to the fact-checkers in a news environment where every story lives an independent life on the social Web and there's no guarantee the reader of any given report will ever see a bundled version of the news or the relevant fact-checking column, which could have been published months earlier. One-off fact-checking is no match for the repeated lie.
...
The solution now as then lies in repeated boilerplate, either inserted by editors who back-stop their writers, or by writers who save it as B-matter (background or pre-written text) so they don't have to come up with a new way of saying something every single time they file. Basic, simple, brief factual boilerplate can save an article from becoming a crutch for one campaign or the other; can save time; and can give readers a fuller understanding of the campaigns, even if they haven't had time to read deep dives on complex topics.
...
B-matter has kind of fallen by the wayside in the age of the Web, where blog standards often involve reporting just one new thing, not comprehensively, or just the latest thing that was said, rather than its history. But a deft use of B-matter can really solve a wealth of problems, and show political lies for what they are. And if lies are going to be repeated, the truth has to be, too.
The other solution, of course, is to treat repeated lies as a story (something I suspect we'll see much more of in the months ahead). What is Romney trying to do by repeating false statements about the tweak to welfare rules over and over before working-class white audiences? What is Obama trying to do by focusing on Ryan's 2011 budget and ignoring his 2012 one? Well, that second one's kind of obvious. But you get the drift.
Full article: http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2012/08/what-to-do-with-political-lies/261189
Fact-checking was a great development in accountability journalism -- but perhaps it's time for a new approach. It's no longer enough to outsource the fact-checking to the fact-checkers in a news environment where every story lives an independent life on the social Web and there's no guarantee the reader of any given report will ever see a bundled version of the news or the relevant fact-checking column, which could have been published months earlier. One-off fact-checking is no match for the repeated lie.
...
The solution now as then lies in repeated boilerplate, either inserted by editors who back-stop their writers, or by writers who save it as B-matter (background or pre-written text) so they don't have to come up with a new way of saying something every single time they file. Basic, simple, brief factual boilerplate can save an article from becoming a crutch for one campaign or the other; can save time; and can give readers a fuller understanding of the campaigns, even if they haven't had time to read deep dives on complex topics.
...
B-matter has kind of fallen by the wayside in the age of the Web, where blog standards often involve reporting just one new thing, not comprehensively, or just the latest thing that was said, rather than its history. But a deft use of B-matter can really solve a wealth of problems, and show political lies for what they are. And if lies are going to be repeated, the truth has to be, too.
The other solution, of course, is to treat repeated lies as a story (something I suspect we'll see much more of in the months ahead). What is Romney trying to do by repeating false statements about the tweak to welfare rules over and over before working-class white audiences? What is Obama trying to do by focusing on Ryan's 2011 budget and ignoring his 2012 one? Well, that second one's kind of obvious. But you get the drift.
Full article: http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2012/08/what-to-do-with-political-lies/261189
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What to Do With Political Lies? (Original Post)
salvorhardin
Aug 2012
OP
BarackTheVote
(938 posts)1. Put them under oath
Legally under oath, especially at the debates. You lie, you commit perjury, you go to jail. Draconian, but things have gone too far.
Fumesucker
(45,851 posts)2. ...
FLyellowdog
(4,276 posts)3. The best thing we could do is shut down Faux News. nt
salvorhardin
(9,995 posts)4. Well, that's a given
Until then these are two simple things that every reporter should do, or as the story says, we can't afford to outsource fact checking anymore.
salvorhardin
(9,995 posts)5. Kick
salvorhardin
(9,995 posts)6. One last post-weekend kick
This is the way the media should behave.