Inaccuracies in fact-checks make their usefulness questionable, said Lorena Gonzalez, secretary-treasurer and CEO for the San Diego and Imperial Counties Labor Council, AFL-CIO.
Click the photo of Gonzalez below to see video of her explaining her problems with fact-checks. The video is less than 4 minutes; I selected the segment to highlight this one issue. There is a lot more by her and other speakers that I’ll post when I can get around to it.
Lorena Gonzalez
Gonzales discussed her misgivings last month at a media panel sponsored by the San Diego Society of Professional Journalists. She gave examples of where the reporter doing the fact-check didn’t appear to understand the issue, and worse, didn’t want to be corrected. Voice of San Diego’s fact-checks are especially problematic, Gonzalez said.
This is not a partisan issue, Gonzalez said, because she’s seen fact-checks that have misleadingly portrayed statements by both Democrats and Republicans, namely Nathan Fletcher (R) and Ben Hueso (D).
“The problem with the fact-check, and it’s a problem we’re seeing more and more with reporters, is they make up their mind, and it’s based on an opinion on an issue prior to writing the story,” Gonzalez said. “And they don’t want to be proven wrong.”
“Rather than them having an open mind and saying okay, explain it to me then, they’ve already written it, it’s already out there now, it’s been out there now for five hours, which God forbid, that’s forever,” Gonzalez said. “So they’re attached to it.”
“I’ve seen it — I have to be honest — a lot with Voice of San Diego,” Gonzalez said. “Those are good, for the most part, young men, with a single perception, probably built on the fact that politicians lie and that unions have either too much power or have lost all their power, depending on which day it was. And they’re going to go with that story.”
VOSD’s fact-checks have been also criticized by San Diego CityBeat’s Dave Maass. VOSD may have been led astray by following the fact check from PolitiFact, which at times is just plain inaccurate and intellectually mediocre.
Some of VOSD’s fact checks, as well as PolitiFact’s, are worthy of the name. But there’s too often an arrogance about them coupled with a lack of understanding.
Trendy gimmicks that package the same reporter errors in shiny new containers aren’t what we need. Good work, Lorena!
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(DISCLAIMER: This is my opinion, not necessarily that of my employer, the North County Times).