When I first began my Politi-Psychotic posts, I realized that there were some journalistic rules that should be followed, to provide an appropriate framework and order for readers to understand what I was talking about. For example, putting a cropped screenprint of the actual graphic of the PolitiFact ruling at the top of the post. Even my tables breaking down Bryan White’s Grading PolitiFact critiques are part of this; providing a link to the PolitiFact article, identifying who wrote it, etc.
Sometimes the way I might do a post is to find some links, write some comments, and then try to connect the dots to tie it all together. Sometimes I give up because it doesn’t tie together very well, and looks too disjointed. Sometimes, I do my best with it and publish it anyway, especially if I know I’ve adequately addressed the crux of whatever I am writing about.
This recent post by Bryan on a ruling by PolitiFact Virginia exemplifies that point. But it’s not Bryan I’m talking about. The writer/researcher, Warren Fiske, needed to provide more explanation. Some of the writing seemed disjointed. Unfortunately, it provided a veritable feast of errors and slips and omissions for which Bryan White made a proverbial glutton of himself. In doing so however, Bryan missed the heart of the ruling itself, and appeared to shoot himself in the foot with his reliance on boilerplate Republican talking points.
So let’s take a hard look at Bryan’s laundry list of the God "awful journalism" (quoting him) of this particular ruling by PolitiFact:
