Factcheck.org's reliability?

[woodsprite]

Is Factcheck.org reliable? It sounds like they're Romney/Ryan apologists this a.m. I've never really used them much. I use Snopes and others when countering the emails I get from conservanazis.

The reason I ask is because an ahole repub friend said I needed to check out Factcheck because us Dems lie just like we were saying Romney/Ryan did. From what I read, it sounded more like they were saying "well we really don't know what the repubs are saying, so the DNC shouldn't be saying this, that, the other...."

[Enrique]

1. it's an opinion column

It is a guy named Brooks Jackson writing about what he likes and doesn't like. How he got the Annenberg Foundation to fund it is the question.

[Bad Thoughts]

2. They are reliably pro-GOP eom.

[Jeff In Milwaukee]

5. Don't know about that...

If you do a Google search on "Factcheck" and bias, it seems that all you get are right-wingers complaining about the liberal bias of Factcheck.org and Politifact.

I think they are occasionally guilty of malpractice and being otherwise brain-dead in their analysis, but I've never seen any decidedly left-wing or right-wing bias

[joeglow3]

8. That is the key.

Usuaully, I find if both sides are complaining, they are probably middle of the road or unbiased. We are all human and subjected to our own faults. I find people typically want to find the lies in the other side, but dismiss the source as biased when they point out the lies of our side. And, this goes beyond politics to just about every aspect of our lives.

[Aerows]

13. Republicans complain

the very second that something doesn't support their narrative. Democrats stop and check it themselves. Republicans are kneejerk "that's not what was said" and make it up as they go along. I've lived with a Republican father that gets pissed off if he's wrong and immediately changes the story. We have heated arguments because I don't let him get away with his shit of changing the argument, and it ultimately ends with him pissed off and screaming because he's been proven wrong.

[Nye Bevan]

14. Really?

We’ve read through the speeches as well. We’ve come to the same conclusion: Nowhere did we see that the president “apologized” for America. In some speeches, Obama was drawing a distinction between his policies and those of his predecessor, George W. Bush. In other instances, Obama appeared to be employing a bit of diplomacy, criticizing past actions of both the U.S. and the host nation, and calling for the two sides to move forward.

And there's plenty more anti-Romney-Ryan stuff up there.

[jsmirman]

3. I wrote a crushing comment on bloomberg's reality check, and then sent it in a letter

In response to this trash:

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-09-05/obama-is-wrong-on-romney-tax-plan-impact-reality-check.html

Here:

You've matched a disgracefully misleading headline to disgracefully ill-crafted article. So, by reference to a vague reference that Romney has made without providing any specifics, Obama's statement is judged to be wrong? WRONG. It is correct until the other guy comes up with some specifics. And if that guy is too craven to come up with any specifics (which would show just who's going to get hit), he gets no credit for them. THAT is accountability.

And then your next statement is that Obama is wrong about the tax impact, with the proof being that, indeed, Romney's plan cannot remain revenue neutral without either pulling back from his proposed cuts for millionaires, or, indeed, raising taxes on the middle class? Huffing glue much? Secretly replace logic with anti-logic/Folgers Crystals and waiting to see if anyone notices?

As a former journalist, I find the lack of quality in this piece to be shameful. Reality check? Are you kidding? Congratulations on participating in the plot to turn fact-checking into something partisan rather than a professional act of identifying the truth. False equivalencies and shoddy work = journalistic malpractice.

Fact-checking is a noble pursuit. The way the lot of you shame the concept of checking facts, either by sloppy journalism, inadequate attention to the practice, or through lazy false equivalencies is a disgrace.

You need to distinguish between a fact check and a nitpick. Or own up to it when you don't really have something that contradicts the stated position in a speech.

What you are doing contributes just as much to the "journalism is dead" fact-free universe as does a failure to properly check a publication's own product. False equivalencies make an equal contribution to a world where it's just fine to lie and facts are simply a matter of subjective opinion.

Shame.

--------------------------------

The stuff I've read is a load of horseshit - and an embarrassing load, at that.

[jberryhill]

4. One of the purposes of education is that one shouldn't have to ask this question

Factcheck.org is not the product of one person, contrary to one of the statements above.

What some people do is to define "reliable" as "agrees with my opinion". Well, gee, when people said Obama was born in Kenya, factcheck had two of their students go to Chicago to touch and photograph a certified copy of his birth certificate.

At that point, birthers concluded that Factcheck was in the tank for Obama.

So, in one sense, your question is so vague as to be hopeless, and neither of the comments this far provide any facts at all. The thing about applying an educated mind to a piece of writing which cites reasons for its conclusions is that you are not forced into a "Ripley's Believe It Or Not" situation. You can determine if the reasoning is sound and consider the sources used to reach that conclusion.

Your question further assumes that the random opinions of strangers is reliable. Asking DU "Is Factcheck reliable" in the expectation of a trustworthy answer, implicitly assumes that DU will provide a reliable answer. Otherwise, what would be the point of asking?

[jsmirman]

6. Do you understand that my response deals with

what seems to be the flood of "let's not looked biased" and try to fall all over ourselves in search of false equivalencies stuff that is coming out after Day 1 of the Convention?

My comment doesn't deal with factcheck.org, but it sure shoves a grenade up their asses over at bloomberg. That "reality check" was horseshit, and I believe I eviscerated their nonsense.

[jberryhill]

7. And do you understand there were two replies in this thread when I started writing mine?

I had to take a phone call, came back, and finished it.

[jsmirman]

9. Fair enough

just not easy to divine.

[jberryhill]

10. I realize that....

"neither" was something of a contextual clue, though

[jsmirman]

15. I was

confused by that, I confess.

I wondered why you didn't notice my post and why would you refer to three posts as "neither."

[jberryhill]

16. Another contextual mystery for Zombiehorde

[woodsprite]

11. I asked because I'm not that familiar with it and it seemed

Like the crap my friend sent me was written by a Romney or Fox apologist. I wanted to know a bit more about the background of where he was getting his info. Even with the occasional troll that can appear, I trust resource references from DU more than other places.

[cynatnite]

12. Spotty at best. I don't use them. n/t