(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . Why Are Fact Checks So Wimpy? Trump vs NYTimes [1] ['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.'] Date: 2024-08-09 So yesterday Trump dumped another toilet-bowl full of lies on the media in a deranged rambling speech billed as a news conference. All the major networks carried it live mostly in full. No reporter present questioned any of his statements. Afterwards there were the usual fact checks, far too late, all polite and professional. I want to bring up one in particular, published this morning in the New York Times. Trump claims prisons “are being emptied out into our country.” He adds patients at mental hospitals to his usual anti-immigrant spiel, and says millions are entering through the southern border. Now, obviously, this is insane nonsense. But the NY Times and other media refuse to call it insane nonsense. They do a fact-check. They call experts. The experts don’t say it’s insane nonsense. After all, they’re experts. They say “they could not corroborate Mr. Trump’s claims.” After doing her due diligence, the NYT “Fact-check Reporter” proclaims her conclusion: “This lacks evidence.” No reporter ever follows up. These claims are repeated by Trump at every rally. Why aren’t real questions asked? Even though we all know the claim is ridiculous, why not ask about it? Ask how this works exactly. Mental asylum and prison doors are opened up and inmates released. Then what? Are they expected to wander somehow from Pakistan (some are terrorists supposedly after all) or Venezuela or the many other countries Trump claims they come from to the Mexican border on their own? traveling thousands of miles without food or water or money on foot? How do they get to the border? Do the countries releasing them provide food/water/money/clothes? Do they have buses or trains or planes chartered? Do armed guards accompany them and stay with them until they are admitted to the US? How does it work? And if MILLIONS are coming each year, as Trump claims, can you produce a few to be interviewed, to describe their journeys, to give details? It would be a great discussion after all, and with millions entering it should be damn easy to find a few dozen. Set up a focus group and ask them whom they will vote for in the election. Trump also claims these “illegals” will be voting for Democrats. Let’s ask them! Seriously—reporters: DO YOUR JOBS. Pick any of Trump’s crazy claims and FOLLOW UP. And if you do a “fact-check” of something like this, don’t say the claim “lacks evidence.” Don’t even say it is “false.” “False” could be an honest error. Say the claim is A LIE. Say it’s DELUSIONAL. Say it’s XENOPHOBIA (although you’d have to explain to the MEGAheads what that means). Say it’s RACISM (because Trump only makes these statements about brown immigrants, not white folks from Slovenia like Melania or from Czechoslovakia like Ivana or from Scotland like his mother). Stop being so meek and subservient. That’s not your job. Have some self-respect. Publish what you know and we all know—that Trump lies constantly about these things. You don’t have to say he’s crazy, stupid, and ignorant. That isn’t your job. Telling the truth about what he says IS your job. [END] --- [1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2024/8/9/2261924/-Why-Are-Fact-Checks-So-Wimpy-Trump-vs-NYTimes?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=latest_community&pm_medium=web Published and (C) by Daily Kos Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified. via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds: gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/