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Lou's avatar

The Times as well as many media outlets want a horserace campaign. They need it to be close to generate subscriptions and ratings. There is no way they can possibly portray Trump as being closer to Biden in his ability to tell the truth. So their only alternative is to paint Biden as being "inaccurate" like Trump. It's sad what the New York Times has become. There are many causes to the destruction of our democracy. It hasn't happened overnight. Trump is of course the icing on the cake but you can trace the beginning of the demise to when media outlets were tasked to make a profit over good journalism. The drama being attempted by saying Biden and the Democrats lie too is just adding to the false narrative that both sides do it. Sure, all politicians get loose with the facts but how can you compare the garden variety white lies of presidential candidates to the pathological liar currently in the White House? It's just downright irresponsible.

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Theodora30's avatar

This faux balance fact-checking has been going on for decades. Republicans know they can easily distract the media from their own weaknesses by focusing on some trivial thing their opponent has misstated. For example the media went nuts over Gore saying that he had traveled with FEMA director Witt to view a disaster in Texas when he had actually travelled on that particular trip with an assistant. Here is the headline of an article in the Baltimore Sun:

“ Gore again must explain exaggeration”

https://www.baltimoresun.com/news/bs-xpm-2000-10-08-0010080112-story.html

Gore was also slammed for saying that schools were so crowded that a student in Sarasota had to stand. That was true but the media crucified him because that student was eventually given a desk. Her classroom was designed for 24 students but had 36 which proved Gore’s point but why get distracted by important problems when you can a pick a person apart for trivial misstatements?

For decades Republicans have been playing this game to distract the media from focusing on the substance of issues where they are vulnerable. The media completely ignored the substance of the issues Gore was addressing — that he had a lot of experience dealing with disasters and that many of our schools were overcrowded so the discussion became about Gore’s truthfulness, not the serious problems he wanted to address.

The same thing is happening here. Biden makes an important criticism of the Trump administration, Republicans pounce on a small factual error, the media shifts its focus to Biden getting something “wrong”, not to the horrific, life-threatening federal government unwillingness to lead on this pandemic and Biden’s plan to fix that mess.

The best response to this game I have seen came after CNN criticized Kamala Harris for saying that as California AG she had sued Exxon. She had sued other oil companies but had only investigated Exxon. Her press secretary responded;

“When parsing word choice is given the same treatment as intentional lies. . . it blurs the very lines ‘fact checkers’ are supposed to help keep drawn.”

https://www.politico.com/story/2019/09/11/democrats-fact-checking-1489135

It still boggles my mind that the media is still so willing to allow Republicans to pull their strings and distract them from serious problems. It’s not just Fox News misleading the public.

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