Fact-Checking Is Not Enough

In the Internet era, the number of would-be watchdogs and fact-checking teams has proliferated, but the same problems remain.

It isn’t just that even hostile media coverage tends to just widen an attack ad’s audience. It’s also that the interpretation of advertisements often has more in common with cultural criticism than it does with rigorous magazine fact-checking, which makes it hard for even the most down-the-middle reporter to define what counts as fair. Sometimes this manifests itself in straightforward political bias. In a lengthy critique of “non-partisan” outlets like Politifact last winter, The Weekly Standard’s Mark Hemingway argued persuasively that their ostensibly neutral analysis often feels more “a rearguard action to keep inconvenient truths” – mostly the ones that favor conservatives – “out of the conversation.” But even when outright bias doesn’t intrude, the problem of interpretation remains.

This means that with rare exceptions, viewers and voters, not reporters and pundits, will always get the final say on whether a particular advertisement crosses a line. And the press needs to learn to trust them with it. Negative ads will always be a feature of American politics, and voters have generally shown good judgment about what counts as a legitimate issue and what doesn’t.