Beer, gin, and fact checking

Every so often I visit FactCheck.org or POLITIFACT.  The latter uses “Pants on Fire” for the most outrageous claims.

The FactCheck story that caught my interest was the claim that increased beer drinking reduced the drinking of gin in 18th Century England.  This claim was made by Sen. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana at the confirmation hearing of Scott Gottlieb, Trump’s nominee to head the Food and Drug Administration.  Al Franken was skeptical.  Thanks, Al!  Maybe the “ruling” party should be called Republiars; they certainly aren’t concerned with Res Publica (public things).

My choice of the day from POLITIFACT was “Fake theory that Barack Obama hid millions of taxpayer dollars offshore started on parody site”.  Maybe “conservatives” should be called “connedgullibles”.

Truth in polls - it depends on the questions and the interpretation

An article making the rounds is "Fox News Viewers Know Less Than People Who Don't Watch Any News", Huffington Post, 2011-11-21.

However, be sure to follow the links to the Fairleigh Dickinson report. There is a surprise about who is best informed.

It also depends on when you ask what questions. PolitiFact gave Jon Stewart a mostly false reading on its Truth-O-Meter for his claim that Fox News viewers are the most misinformed.

My take is that even though Fox News is near the bottom with a few other sources, the most misinformed are those who don't use any of the standard sources of information. And there are far too many of those.

When does "objectivity" become "subjectivity"?

One of the major problems with "the media", at least "the mainstream media" is that in the effort to be fair to "both sides", they don't call out distortions of truth. Thus, we get politicians, corporations, and even individuals making statements that are misleading or even patently false.

For a rather long analysis, see "Romney Ad Exposes Media's Chronic Inability To Use The Word 'Lie'", Jason Linkins, Huffington Post, 2011-11-22.

The Romney ad in question uses Barack Obama's quoting a statement by the McCain campaign as if Obama had said it.

There are at least two fact checking sites - FactCheck.org: A Project of the Annenberg Public Policy Center and PolitiFact.com of the St. Petersburg Times. The latter is known for its Truth-o-meter. It might be worth your while to add bookmarks for these sites and include them in your daily online news reading. You do read a lot, right?