[Air-l] factcheck.org

[Jennifer Stromer-Galley]

Factcheck.org provides a unique service. TV and print news continue to
be reluctant to run adwatches and to identify false claims made in
candidate speeches and advertising. There's a long debate in the
journalist community about whether their job is such or not. Yet, there
is a real need for someone who is independent of the parties/candidates
to determine whether claims made by candidates are grounded in truth or
are misleading in some way. Journalists, pundits, and citizens
continually harbor the feeling the candidates lie to us, but it would be
nice to know if and when that happens.

In terms of dissemination, the Internet saves the day! Although Brooks
Jackson was fairly successful in getting the major networks to adwatch
some ads, and was able to get some major newspapers to adwatch, it's
been a constant struggle. The Internet makes it easy for him to produce
articles on the inconsistencies and misleading claims. And, it's easier
for voters to read. No longer are those who have access to the Internet
beholden to the publication of the adwatches in print or broadcast on
TV. If they miss an adwatch, they can log on and catch up on what
they've missed. 

Maybe Annenberg could produce a print newsletter to disseminate the fact
checking. Harvard Medical School produces a monthly newsletter on
women's health for a small fee, for example. But, the timeliness of the
fact checking would be lost in a monthly publication. When the primary
cycle is as lightening-paced as this year's is going to be, by the time
I received my monthly report from Annenberg in snail mail, the bulk of
the primaries would be over!

~JSG 



> -----Original Message-----
> From: air-l-admin at aoir.org [mailto:air-l-admin at aoir.org] On 
> Behalf Of Christian Nelson
> Sent: Tuesday, January 20, 2004 9:04 AM
> To: air-l list
> Subject: [Air-l] factcheck.org

> <snip>

> completed.) As far as I can tell, this is something new on 
> the Internet, 
> that could really only happen with the Internet. Clearly, 
> this project 
> couldn't get off the ground if it had go to teh expense of 
> distributing 
> its product like a newspaper. And it seems differenet than other 
> Internet political sites, in that it strives to be independent and is 
> independently funded. Am I right about its uniqueness? 
> --Christian Nelson
> 
> 
> 
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