It’s been too long since I last talked about fact checking. Dealing with the aftermath of a contested election and a failed uprising can be a bit confusing. But yes, it did not take long before the disinformation pipeline turned its attention to President Joe Biden if my Facebook feed is an indication. Many of the claims are recovered from the campaign.
One is that Biden dropped the H1N1 vaccine in 2009. Biden went too far by saying he led the reaction as his lead role was behind the scenes. Politico says: “Biden’s role, although important, was not equated with leading the response. He was the main link between the government and governors and Congress and managed to obtain funding from skeptical leaders.”
Regardless of its degree of involvement, the delay in the vaccine was not at all due to political considerations, but merely the reality in developing a flu vaccine based on time-consuming incubation in eggs. The vaccine yield was less than usual, meaning that the promised doses would only come months later. The covid-19 vaccine is based on various technologies that include messenger RNA, which means that it could be made and tested in less time, although the number of available doses is over-inhibited.
I think many of us with covid-19 and other issues hope to return to relying more on facts than on feelings and conspiracy theories.
The sigh you may have heard last Wednesday afternoon was the relief of fact-checkers who are already getting a well-deserved rest from the chaos of the Trump years. The Washington Post Fact Checker puts Donald Trump’s final score of false or misleading allegations over four years at 30,573, about half of which is his final year. On November 2 alone, he made 503 false claims compared to 492 in the first 100 days of his presidency. The average during his term was about 21 erroneous claims per day – a brilliant pace for anyone committed to facts to try to match.
The fact that Biden is taking office does not mean that fact checkers will take free time for the next four years. Just as they did with Barack Obama and Trump, they look at statements and keep an eye on promises Biden has made. Of course, they also investigate other notable personalities and posts on social media when necessary to keep disinformation / misinformation to a minimum.
Yet you could almost feel the relief in the members of Eugene Kiely, Robert Farley and D’Angelo Gore’s message about Biden’s inaugural address on FactCheck.org: “Returning to a time when inaugural speeches promised unity and hope, but few facts, During his inauguration, the newly sworn President Joe Biden delivered a traditional speech that offered little to fact-checkers. threats, covid-19 and the Women’s Voice Parade of 1913 in a 21-minute speech. ‘
If it’s mostly a quarrel, that’s a good thing. Let fact-checkers rest before the first joint speech to Congress.
Agence France-Presse (AFP) found on the executive order of Biden, who revoked the Keystone pipeline permit, that social media posts inflated job losses to come from the action, ranging from 11,000 to 83,000. The Canada-based company said 1,000 unions would be lost immediately in the U.S. and Canada. The company estimated in October that the pipeline was expected to reach 11,000 Americans by 2021. As PolitiFact finds, most jobs would be temporary and last four to eight months.
Not that people who do not believe in fact checking care.
Since they came to their senses since the start of the 2008 election, the most reliable fact-checkers are turning to their sources. This means that when you read a fact check somewhere like AFP, PolitiFact or FactCheck, you can find the source material with the click of a link that may be embedded in the fact check, in a list at the end, or both. You can then read the material yourself to determine how much confidence you need to place in the analysis. The trusted checkers are also open about their sources of funding. Fact-checkers who only link to themselves and / or opinion pieces and who are angry about their funding … well, I will tread carefully.
There will probably be something messy on the floor just waiting for you to step on it.
I find it necessary at the moment to remind readers that I am not a political columnist; I sometimes write about the sociology of politics, focusing on how politics has crept into every facet of our lives, and about fact checking. My opinion on politics does not really matter, so if you want me to go hard on some politician, you’re in the wrong place.
What I’m interested in is life itself and how we relate to each other. One of the ways is through words, which is why so many of my columns focus on it.
This brings me to a request from a friend who wants me to talk about the origin of familiar phrases (like “curiosity has killed the cat”). Do you have one I want to see? Send me an email at the address below.
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Assistant Editor Brenda Looper is editor of the Voices page. Read her blog at blooper0223.wordpress.com. Send her an email to [email protected].