In the last (I wish it were the last) Presidential debate, Donald Trump said that Hillary Clinton should apologize for “the 33,000 e-mails that you deleted, and that you acid washed.” The tweet above was the instant response of NBC’s “fact-checkers.” No, it’s not a parody.
You see, when Donald Trump uses rhetorical devices like metaphor, hyperbole, irony and anything else that a reasonable and educated person would understand as not being meant literally, the pro-Clinton, pro-Democrat, anti-conservative, anti-Republican, anti-ethical, anti-democracy journalism “fact-checkers” intentionally treat the statement as if it was meant literally, so they can call Trump a liar, and build on the narrative that he lies even more than Hillary does, so, the reasoning goes, Hillary’s lies don’t matter
That they do this repeatedly and increasingly obviously has the effect of making it impossible for their commentary to be trusted when Trump does lie, which is often. It also raises the question of whether these people are too dumb themselves to provide analysis of anything, and, quite possibly, to dress themselves.
Also:
- It is insulting to NBC’s audience. How many people believed that Trump was saying that Clinton dropped her server in acid?
- The episode demonstrates (again) how absurdly fallible “live fact-checking” is, especially when the fact-checkers have partisan agendas and the judgment of clams.
- This is what you get, however, when journalists ally with the State. Their willingness to bend the truth and their audacity in doing so becomes progressively extreme and reckless. Now they are telling us that Donald Trump was being literal when he was not. (But then, this is Trump, so there is no need to be fair, just to get him.) How long before they inform us that Peace is War?
_______________________
Pointer: Washington Examiner
Ethics Alarms attempts to give proper attribution and credit to all sources of facts, analysis and other assistance that go into its blog posts, and seek written permission when appropriate. If you are aware of one I missed, or believe your own work or property was used in any way without proper attribution, credit or permission, please contact me, Jack Marshall, at jamproethics@verizon.net.
Ethics Alarms 
Nice. The only question I would have is whether or not they are intentional in their literal intentionality or whether liberalism presents itself on through obtuse stupidity…..!
I really don’t know. What do you think? One problem with journalism is that it really does not attract the best and the brightest, but arrogant generalists who anoint themselves with more authority than they deserve. Not all, but most, just are not that smart, and the culture encourages rather than condemns bias. If the answer is that this is confirmation bias, it still suggests stupidity, since anyone awake would realize that it screams bias.
Reminds me of a commentn made back in 1972. Four U.S. senators were attending the law school re-union, and the undergraduate population demanded a press conference. I was covering the event for a local radio station in Charlottesville and my colleague was covering it for the law school newspaper. A young undergraduate began here question with a long rambling pre-amble, which concluded with the beginning of the question: “The women of America want to know…,” to which my colleague responded in a not terrible quiet voice, “Who elected you to speak for the women of America?
The fact checkers at PolitiFact, at least, cannot not know that their “report card” graphs are misleading. They know about selection bias and what it means, yet they stress the “report cards” anyway for the sake of clicks and perhaps deliberately to get a finger on the scale of public opinion.
Lucas Graves recently published a book about fact-checking (“Deciding What’s True”) which unintentionally illuminates a key insight about the fact checkers. Graves writes that the fact checkers say they do not pay attention to the tendency of Republicans to receive poor ratings *because of concern it might bias their fact-checking.* Graves does not address whether publishing candidate report cards might bias the fact checkers in their fact-checking. Of course it does.
Writing as a journalist (albeit one with a science education), Jack is right about us not being particularly smart. Journalistic fact checking is a Dunning-Kruger trap if ever there was one.
Not long, I’d say. There’s a very real chance that this election will return us to where we were eight years ago, and you can count on a lot of new liberal items being passed permanently into law, starting with Obamacare becoming full on single payer. At this point I say the hell with it. The voters and parties chose who and what they chose, and they can live with the consequences of it. But forgive me for a little schadenfreude if everything goes to shit on Hillary’s watch.
When everything goes to shit and the President isn’t black so the media doesn’t dare say so and much of the public is afraid of being called racist (or feeling racist by telling the truth), there will be a backlash. The pendulum keeps swinging.
The president will just be female, so swap “sexist” in for “racist” and things will just keep rolling on. The pendulum isn’t swinging, it’s swung for good to the left. I would bet you your choice of prizes we don’t see another GOP president elected in your lifetime.
Steve-O-in-NJ said, “The president will just be female, so swap “sexist” in for “racist” and things will just keep rolling on.”
That’s very true and it;s already begun.
Steve-O-in-NJ said, “The pendulum isn’t swinging, it’s swung for good to the left. “
For good? Maybe not but there is certainly a temporary lock on it.
Steve-O-in-NJ said, “I would bet you your choice of prizes we don’t see another GOP president elected in your lifetime.”
Well I guess when you have a conglomerate of corrupted Democrat Party psychologist infiltrating the Republican Party with easy to beat caricatures candidates that are elevated to the Republican nominee, what can you expect? 😉
How’d you like my poor proof reading skills that caused me to leave “Democrat Party” instead of changing it “Democratic Party”; I need a good proof reader, I suck at it. 😦
Dimocrap is also permissible.
The Democrat Party is decidedly not Democratic, i.e. see the way they treated Bernie Sanders in order to push the nomination to Hillary.
Another word to describe what you’re talking about is illiberal.
Oh, you’ll see another GOP president…it just will be a leftist GOP.
I don’t think you understand the pendulum principle.
For Clinton supporters; the ends justify the means.
But when the means includes “show everyone how stupid and corrupt we are,” it causes its own problems.
Jack Marshall said, “But when the means includes ‘show everyone how stupid and corrupt we are,’ it causes its own problems.”
Causes problems? Naaaaaaa, you’re forgetting how many low information voters there are that actually believe that kind of nonsense, and the rest on the left will either ignore it completely or openly justify it with more ignorant rationalizations – it’s never ending BS.
“For Clinton supporters; the ends justify the means.”
Pretty sure you meant to write, ‘ends justify the memes’. 🙂
Given the fact a biological man can now present himself as a “woman,” may they are only presenting themselves as morons……and here I am trying to be kind to the liberal mind!
Good. Grief. Seriously, NBC? If this is just stupidity, then just go dark, NBC, because you have no powers here. Turn off the lights. Begone, and take your light-weight pseudo-journalists with you. If this is intentional, then shame on you, NBC. You are worse than stupid. You are evil.
The journalistic pandering to popular “news” lust is becoming dangerous. There is plenty of REAL news going on around the world, but we mostly don’t hear about it because it isn’t what the masses want to hear about. I haven’t watched news in years. The anchors and reporters can’t seem to read at even the 3rd grade level. And their phony little “Look, I’m human!” routines are so embarrassing. So are their “Look, I’m an educated idiot!” routines.
THE CLAIM: NBC News says Trump says Clinton “acid washed” her email server.
THE TRUTH: Trump said Clinton “acid washed” 33,000 emails, not her email server.
There, that’s just as helpful and informative as their “fact check”.
Question: How long must propaganda be published on the internet before the propaganda becomes a viral infection spreading the propaganda as fact?
I think that the proper question is has it already happened!
I wonder what their response would have been if he said that she bleached her email server instead of “acid-washed.”
Thanks Jack. I actually forwarded this to my brother, laughing, and suggesting it must be an Onion-style joke.
Then I found out it was an actual, honest-to-goodness NBC “fact check”. I almost fell out of my chair.
Have they no shame?
No. Clearly.
The pendulum is broken. It can’t swing right the whole damn clock is laying on its left side in a pile of splinters and springs.
I fear wg is right, certainly on the presidential level. And certainly in colleges and the media.
And the new phenomenon of Presidential Trumping*** is one of the major causes of the clock crashing to its side.
*** Presidential Trumping: the “too good to be true” perfect storm blowing the the opposition candidate into the White House with the steady pounding force of a hurricane.
I’ve fallen and I can’t get my…
…oh whatever….
You will be assimilated by the political left; resistance is futile.
Nah. History says otherwise. The French after the Revolution thought that pendulum had stopped too.
I do think people are stupid generally, but I don’t hold it against the average citizen in not knowing how data is deleted from a server. “Acid washed” sounds sinister and makes one think that Hillary’s employees (who are all dressed in orange James Bond minion jumpsuits with protective face gear) repeatedly dunked her servers in acid until the servers disintegrated. Meanwhile, Hillary is watching with an evil grin on her face while petting a fluffy white cat.
So yes, I would call BS on this particular statement by Trump because it is deliberately misleading.
10,000 years dungeon.