{"id":324477,"date":"2021-08-14T01:44:50","date_gmt":"2021-08-13T22:44:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/en.buradabiliyorum.com\/fact-checking-the-fact-checkers-pants-on-fire-partisans\/"},"modified":"2021-08-14T01:44:50","modified_gmt":"2021-08-13T22:44:50","slug":"fact-checking-the-fact-checkers-pants-on-fire-partisans","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/fact-checking-the-fact-checkers-pants-on-fire-partisans\/","title":{"rendered":"#Fact-checking the fact-checkers: \u2018Pants on Fire\u2019 partisans"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>&#8220;<strong>#Fact-checking the fact-checkers: \u2018Pants on Fire\u2019 partisans<\/strong>&#8221;<br \/>\n<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2021\/07\/germany-facebook-01.jpg?quality=90&amp;strip=all\" \/><\/p>\n<div>\n<aside class=\"single__inline-module alignleft\">\n        <\/aside>\n<p>Snopes.com describes itself as the \u201cdefinitive fact-checking site,\u201d yet turns out to be a big source of misinformation: Its cofounder has written dozens of plagiarized pieces \u2014\u00a0many of them attacks on Republican politicos.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s just the latest example of \u201cfact-checking\u201d serving as a cover for partisan, left-wing opinion.<\/p>\n<p><a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.buzzfeednews.com\/article\/deansterlingjones\/snopes-cofounder-plagiarism-mikkelson\">A BuzzFeed investigation found<\/a> that Snopes\u2019 David Mikkelson has \u201cbeen lying to the site\u2019s tens of millions of readers.\u201d Snopes, which has served as a <a href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/category\/social-mediaa\/\" data-internallinksmanager029f6b8e52c=\"1\" title=\"Social Media\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Facebook<\/a> fact-checker, confirmed that Mikkelson published at least 54 plagiarized articles under various bylines.<\/p>\n<p>His fake alter-ego, Jeff Zarronandia, claimed to be a Pulitzer Prize winner and had bylines \u201con at least 23 Snopes articles on topics like Donald Trump\u2019s financial woes and false rumors about Hillary Clinton.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Snopes has suspended Mikkelson from editorial duties pending \u201ca comprehensive internal investigation.\u201d But he\u2019s still a company officer and 50 percent shareholder.<\/p>\n<p>And Snopes has other problems. <a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.snopes.com\/news\/2021\/08\/12\/facebook-covid-denialism-examples\/\">A Thursday piece complained<\/a>, \u201cFacebook Fails To Stem COVID Denialism Even as Delta Variant Surges,\u201d and insisted that a post \u201cmisleadingly claimed: \u2018Delta is a distraction! Get your eyes back on the border!\u2019 . . . undermined the severity of the Delta variant surge.\u201d That\u2019s a fact check, for someone to suggest one <a href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/category\/news\/\" data-internallinksmanager029f6b8e52c=\"2\" title=\"News\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">news<\/a> story is worth more attention than another?<\/p>\n<p>Other \u201cfact-checkers\u201d play propagandist, too: PolitiFact, an actual Pulitzer Prize winner, this week rated \u201cFalse\u201d Texas Sen. Ted Cruz\u2019s statement that there is \u201cclear, legal authority\u201d for arrest of those fugitive Texas lawmakers \u2014 when the state\u2019s Supreme Court unanimously ruled that they could be arrested. The site claims, \u201cWhile the language uses the word \u2018arrest,\u2019 there\u2019s uncertainty about how this term is to be interpreted.\u201d What does that even mean? Cruz was clearly right; PolitiFact was just mad about it. <\/p>\n<p>This kind of bias is nothing new. Back in 2011, <a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/weekly-standard\/lies-damned-lies-and-fact-checking\">Mark Hemingway noted in The Weekly Standard<\/a> that \u201cthe media seem oblivious to the distinction between verifying facts and passing judgment on opinions they personally find disagreeable.\u201d He cited a university study that found of the 98 statements PolitiFact rated false in a year, 74 were made by Republicans.<\/p>\n<p>Ten years later, media continue to tout PolitiFact, Snopes and countless other \u201cfact-checkers\u201d as gospel. Will Snopes\u2019 downfall teach them a lesson they\u2019ve failed to learn over a decade? We rate that \u201cUnlikely.\u201d\n                        <\/p><\/div>\n<blockquote><p><strong><span style=\"color: #ff6600;\">If you liked the article, do not forget to share it with your friends. Follow us on\u00a0<span style=\"color: #ff0000;\"><a style=\"color: #ff0000;\" href=\"https:\/\/news.google.com\/publications\/CAAqBwgKMLG0nwswvr63Aw\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\">Google News<\/a><\/span>\u00a0too, click on the star and choose us from your favorites.<\/span><\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<blockquote>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">For forums sites go to <span style=\"color: #ff9900;\"><a style=\"color: #ff9900;\" href=\"https:\/\/forum.buradabiliyorum.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Forum.BuradaBiliyorum.Com<\/a><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<blockquote>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>If you want to read more News articles, you can visit our <span style=\"color: #ff9900;\"><a style=\"color: #ff9900;\" href=\"https:\/\/en.buradabiliyorum.com\/news\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">News category.<\/a><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p><span style=\"color: black;\"><a style=\"color: #ff9900;\" href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2021\/08\/13\/fact-checking-the-fact-checkers-pants-on-fire-partisans\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Source<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&#8220;#Fact-checking the fact-checkers: \u2018Pants on Fire\u2019 partisans&#8221; Snopes.com describes itself as the \u201cdefinitive fact-checking site,\u201d yet turns out to be a big source of misinformation: Its cofounder has written dozens of plagiarized pieces \u2014\u00a0many of them attacks on Republican politicos. It\u2019s just the latest example of \u201cfact-checking\u201d serving as a cover for partisan, left-wing opinion&#8230;.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":324478,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/nypost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2021\/07\/germany-facebook-01.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&w=1024","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[70897],"tags":[114188,43,4974,40445,32681],"class_list":["post-324477","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-8-13-21","tag-editorial","tag-facebook","tag-media","tag-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/324477","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=324477"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/324477\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/324478"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=324477"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=324477"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=324477"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}