HOME / press box: Media criticism.

Lie DetectorsFactCheck.org, the St. Petersburg Times, and the Washington Post smoke out the political BS.

By Jack ShaferPosted Thursday, Sept. 20, 2007, at 4:36 PM ET

(Continued from page 1)

RSS

Related in Slate

Jack Shafer examined writers who embellish their stories and the sources who do it for them. Timothy Noah questioned whether ignorance excused lying in the case of President Bush. Michael Kinsley scrutinized three presidential lies and the truths they illuminate. In 2000, he explored the way reporters ignore political lies that deviate from the stories they're trying to tell.

Why do politicians lie? Adair has a simple theory: "Because politicians and candidates often feel they need a little more juice than they can get from the truth."

Politicians started losing the battle of facts with journalists in the early 1990s, as Nexis use became ubiquitous. Clinton adviser George Stephanopoulos famously complained about sea change in 1993 in a piece by the New York Times' Thomas L. Friedman. "We have become hostage to Lexis-Nexis," he said, because it lets reporters locate every promise Clinton has ever made. Today, the playing field has become even more level as politicians and journalists find themselves second-guessed by the public, who rely on the poor man's Nexis—the Web—to similarly supercharge their research efforts.

George Washington University media professor Mark Feldstein sees the rise of political fact-checking departments as the next step in the battle of wits between the press and pols. "As the press has gotten more aggressive in its reporting, so the politicians have gotten more aggressive in their manipulations. It's like 'Spy vs. Spy' in Mad magazine."

Feldstein sees the features as an example of the press adapting to a more competitive environment, noting that "bloggers are not loath to call people liars." The fact-checking sites "offer more analytical and pointed coverage, because their old bland standard of objectivity doesn't cut it any longer," he says.

Like most journalists, Adair wants to avoid the word liar because, as he says, it's so "loaded." But by the time you bestow Pants on Fire! spankings to politicians, aren't you just relying on a euphemism for the L word?

Adair concedes the point, but adds, "Essentially, it's saying it without saying the word, but realize that so far we've defined Pants on Fire! in a light-hearted way to point out rhetorical excess."

It's all well and good to exterminate political lies, but can politics exist without lies?

Not as long as politicians need the juice.

"That's what will keep me in business for the rest of my career," says Adair.

******

As much as I admire FactCheck.org, I bristle every time I see its name in the proximity of its benefactor, the late, unlamented Walter Annenberg. Annenberg regarded political truth as a nuisance. From his grave, he battles with his millions to establish an undeserved reputation for himself as a defender of the press and protecter of the truth. For more of my malignant views on the "Ambassador," see my 2002 obituary, "Citizen Annenberg." Meanwhile, get off your duff and round up a passel of political lies for the magnifying glasses of the fact checkers. Their e-mail addresses are , , and . Send the usual crap to . (E-mail may be quoted by name in "The Fray," Slate's readers' forum, in a future article, or elsewhere unless the writer stipulates otherwise. Permanent disclosure: Slate is owned by the Washington Post Co.)