Matt Taibbi: Media trying to solve credibility problem by misrepresenting role of fact-checkers

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Media top headlines May 25

A Facebook whistleblower alleging that the tech company censors 'vaccine hesitancy' and more round out today's top media headlines

Liberal journalist Matt Taibbi went after commercial media on Monday for trying to solve its "credibility problem" by misrepresenting the role of fact-checkers in the news business. 

In a piece published on Substack, Taibbi praised the role of the fact-checker and expressed its importance, citing his need for it through his early days as a reporter. He also emphasized the public is "misinformed" about what fact-checkers actually do, explaining commercial media outlets have turned fact-checking into part of a "moral clarity" argument by trumpeting fact-checking programs to combat their drop in public trust.

Taibbi, a frequent corporate media critic, mocked the Poynter Institute's recently held "United Facts of America: A festival of fact-checking" event, as the location where the "latest indignity" of the news business originated. Taibbi pointed out the event was attended by Dr. Anthony Fauci, who told PolitiFact's Katie Sanders that he was not convinced the coronavirus developed naturally. 

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Taibbi then noted criticism of Fauci following the event, which called his statement a reversal of when he declared the virus likely "evolved in nature and then jumped species." Taibbi also pointed out Fauci had been touted as a hero by the media for pushing back on claims the virus possibly leaked from the Wuhan Institute of Virology in China.

He said throughout 2020, many reporters were convinced the lab origin possibility was a conspiracy theory. For instance, he noted, one virologist from the University of Hong Kong got a "Pants on Fire" rating from PolitiFact for claiming the coronavirus was man-made. 

"By May 17, just days after its ‘Festival of Fact-Checking,’ Poynter/PolitiFact had to issue a correction to its September 2020 ‘Pants on Fire’ ruling on the 'lab origin' story," Taibbi wrote, after detailing the World Health Organization visit to China to investigate.

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Taibbi claimed that if fact-checking is used at all today, it's "the equivalent of the bare-minimum collision insurance your average penny-pinching car renter buys."

Taibbi also cited CNN's Christiane Amanpour, who said at the same Poynter fact-checking event that "objectivity is not about taking any issue … and pretending there is an equal amount of fact and truth in each basket." 

"This is a nod to the ‘objectivity doesn’t mean giving equal time to Republicans’ bit that has become so popular in the industry of late," he continued. 

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"Fact-checking was a huge boon when it was an out-of-sight process quietly polishing the turd of industrial reportage. When companies dragged it out in public and made it a beast of burden for use in impressing audiences, they defamed the tradition."