Make Sure, To Always Fact Check, the Fact Checkers
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In the era of Trump and Trump Derangement Syndrome, it is wise to never accept media ‘fact checking’ of his statements on the surface or by the headline.
His rally in Grand Rapids on Thursday brought out all the left wing ‘fact checkers’ to again replay the media narrative that “Trump is a liar”.
The New York Times article, titled, Trump’s Inaccurate Claims … was particularly misleading, exaggerated and inaccurate. Here are just two examples of a dozen or more they cited:
1. What Mr. Trump Said
“By the way, we’re bringing a lot of those car companies back.”
This is exaggerated.
Yet in the description of this exaggeration, they say this: His examples of the auto companies “pouring” into Michigan and other Midwestern states were a $4.5 billion investment in Detroit by Fiat Chrysler, a $1 billion investment by Ford in Chicago, and a $300 million investment in Michigan by General Motors.
Sound reasonable to me. The rest of the description tries to pump up growth during the Obama era after the recession. So, this is more about liking Obama than reporting accurate news or analysis.
2. What Mr. Trump Said
“The special counsel completed its report and found no collusion and no obstruction. … Total exoneration, complete vindication.”
This is false.
Yet in the description of this falsehood, they say this: Mr. Barr quoted the special counsel as stating that “while this report does not conclude that the President committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him,” and wrote that Mr. Mueller did not draw conclusions about whether Mr. Trump’s conduct amounted to obstruction of justice.
This is laughably biased. You are either guilty or no guilty in our country’s legal system. If you are guilty you are charged with something, no matter what language a lawyer uses in his brief. Are they charging Mr. Trump with something? No. Then he must be not guilty. If he wants to characterize not guilty as ‘exonerated’, fine. I might have told him to use ‘vindicated’ alone instead of with ‘exonerated’, but, to any ‘objective observer’, he is not making a false statement. This is obvious. But, ‘objective observer’ is a term which does not apply to this New York Times article or the media at large.
There are more failed examples cited like these throughout this ‘fact check’.
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