The Gist

Fact-Checking Won’t Stop Trump   

The Republican nominee is saying a falsehood every five minutes. Brendan Nyhan from Dartmouth College weighs in on the failure of fact-checking in the 2016 election.

Do facts even matter anymore? Above, a demonstration outside a fundraiser attended by U.S. President George W. Bush on June 27, 2003 in Burlingame, California.

Justin Sullivan / Getty Images

Listen to Episode 593 of Slate’s The Gist:

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On The Gist, we look at the proliferation of fact-checking in the 2016 campaign. One empirical analysis found that Donald Trump is telling a falsehood every five minutes during his speeches. But why isn’t the aggressive fact-checking of the Republican making a difference? We called up Brendan Nyhan, a professor in the department of government at Dartmouth College and the former editor of Spinsanity, a nonpartisan watchdog site focused on political messaging.

In The Spiel, the faltering cease-fire in Syria.

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