As the 2024 presidential campaign kicks into gear, we know that journalists think “fact checking” is an essential tool in keeping conservative “misinformation” from helping Republicans win. Their suppression of the Hunter Biden laptop and their lying “hallmarks of Russian disinformation” spin has not shamed them. It still encourages them.
So we turned to Matt Palumbo, author of the book Fact-Checking the Fact Checkers: How the Left Hijacked and Weaponized the Fact-Checking Industry. Matt shared his thoughts about fact-checking Trump and Biden and how Big Tech uses the fact-checkers to crush conservative communication. MRC Business associate editor Joseph Vazquez joined me in the questioning, since he and Matt are both George Soros investigators.
A big part of the fact-checking weaponization is in target selection. Republicans are much more likely to be “checked” and much more likely to be tagged for dishonesty. PolitiFact has thrown 180 “Pants On Fire” lie ratings at Donald Trump. Joe Biden has 7, and only one as president. George Soros has never been subjected to a PolitiFact evaluation. They don’t check their financial backers.
Another problem is “checking” opinions that liberals don’t like, instead of hard facts. Sometimes, the facts are apparent. For example, Joe Biden recently claimed he was in Manhattan the day after 9-11. That was easy to disprove. Most of the fact-checkers did point that out. But PolitiFact just did this again: Joe Biden claims he taught classes at the University of Pennsylvania, and they declare it “Half True” when it’s demonstrably False!
We talked about how the media can’t help but wildly overreact and declare — as Kristen Welker did with Trump — that Republicans should never say the Democrat Party supports late-term abortion in their platform. But it does — it insists there should be no barriers to abortion. And they keep repeating the lie that there is “no evidence” of Joe Biden’s involvement in Hunter Biden’s international buckraking.
Enjoy the podcast below, or wherever you listen to podcasts.