Or: Getting It Right with the White Knight
This summer we say goodbye to Bill Adair, founding editor of PolitiFact.
Adair, who helped create the Tampa Bay Times' prize-winning fact-checking site, will join Duke University as the Knight Professor of the Practice of Journalism and Public Policy, Times Editor Neil Brown announced Thursday. .
A national search for the next PolitiFact editor will begin soon, Brown said. Adair will continue a relationship with PolitiFact as a contributing editor.
I will miss Mr. Adair as he was very nice to me. He featured my blog once in a PolitiFact article and sent me an e-mail letting me know he actually read it on occasion. I hope all my data and charts didn't make him too dizzy. I believe he worked very hard to make PolitiFact an objective fact-checker, even with all the
nay-sayers.
On the light side, we certainly have a "White Knight" to replace Adair: Who better than my conservative counterpart, Bryan White! He really needs to apply for Adair's job, if he hasn't already done so! He has a
journalism background/education, is already doing fact-checks, as well as a multitude of meta-fact-checks. Who better to understand the needs of the PolitiFact brand that someone who has been trolling its fact-checks and its Facebook page since 2008!
In fact, here's the
un-cut, unedited list of things he might do as PolitiFact's chief editor:
(1) Have a little "cardboard Obama effigy" fire event to represent starting anew,
to emphasize who should have really received ALL the Pants on Fire awards. It will be replaced with a giant framed official portrait of Ronald Reagan.
It's like replacing Satan with Jesus!
 |
Burn that Obama cut-out down!
His presidential pants are on fire now! |
(2) Fire release Louis Jacobson, so he can move onto better things and blacklist him. After all, he was hired over White, and that's only fair considering that (IMO) no one would want his shoddy work, and his extreme bias must be prevented from infecting other news organizations.
(4) Eliminate certain PolitiFact states for cost saving/productivity improvements for favoring Democrats. Consolidate Miami (PolitiFact Florida) to Tampa (and demote the very biased Angie Drobnic-Holan to researcher status), plus shut down New Hampshire, Oregon and Rhode Island because their low output is not cost effective they have too many Democrats and are too liberal. Put PolitiFact Ohio on warning that their franchise will be terminated unless they substantially improve their performance Republican Truth Index to exceed the Democrats. Preferable PolitiFact states which should exemplify fairness and truthfulness in reporting would include but are not limited to: Alabama, Mississippi, Oklahoma, Louisiana and South Carolina.
(5) Institute a PolitiFact across-the-board policy in which any ruling will go through White for final approval. In order to eliminate selection bias, White will select all statements as well. It will totally eliminate selection bias by replacing it with selection bias favoring Republicans.
(6) Erick Erickson (or Jeff Dyberg, if he is available) will be responsible for enforcing instilling within PolitiFact the very best journalistic methodology as practiced by both he and Bryan: There may be instances where one party Republicans would have significant underlying arguments that make most of their statements true, or their statement at face value, if true, is to be ruled on at face value. Or that party Democrat might have statements that should have significant underlying arguments that make their statements false (unless the statement at face value is false). Since White and Erickson (and Dyberg) want only Politi-FACTS fact-checks favoring Republicans and denigrating Democrats, not opinion.
(7) If Jeff Dyberg is hired, require
force on threat of their job that all PolitiFact project employees to read and carry a copy of inspirational readings/expressions to assist in their journalistic efforts
Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged.
(8)
"Lie of the Year" will be eliminated. Instead a vote will be conducted from the "Most Honest
Republican Person of the Month" (see final point Number 11--"Most Honest
Republican Person of the Month" replaces Pants on Fire). And instead of the vote being indiscriminately over-ridden by the PolitiFact management for its own choice, our "Most Honest Person of the Year" will be the voters' choice
of the 12 "Most Honest Republican Person(s) of the Month", which will be a much more popular, fair option.
(9) To further PolitiFact's popularity and its new fair and balanced approach to fact-checking, it will be regularly featured on cable network news shows Fox News and the Blaze.
(10) And a message to Bill Adair in his new role: we don't need your stinkin' editorial contributions! Just joking! We will certainly take a look at them flush them down the toilet.
(11)
MOST IMPORTANT: The Truth-o-Meter category
Pants on Fire, due to its inherently subjective determination as uncovered in White's impartial, fair-minded and unbiased studies , will be eliminated. An exhaustive review will be performed on the Pants on Fire already awarded to determine their legitimacy so that those claims indiscriminately awarded
to Republicans can be removed
with Democrat Pants on Fire kept in, since Democrats are much bigger liars than Republicans.
Instead, there will be a renewed emphasis on telling the truth which Republicans, like Bryan White, as everyone knows, have a monopoly on, as opposed to egregious lying. So a "Most Honest Republican Person of the Month" (also see Number 8) will be featured for being honest, forthright and adhering to the best of patriotic and conservative principles.
This should assure that PolitiFact becomes a much improved, unbiased publication that readers can enjoy without the defects of "Pants on Fire" or the flawed, logical-fallacy riddled and liberally biased fact-checks of some of its former writers. This should greatly balance and increase the readership base. Another Pulitzer prize here we come!
