Tapper Teams with PolitiFact to Fact Check "This Week"
BY Nancy Scola | Friday, April 9 2010
A few weeks back NYU's Jay Rosen proposed, after ABC's Jake Tapper asked for suggestions for his tenure as host of "This Week," that the program engage in some fact-checking of their guests. Tapper, it seems, thought it was a good ideas, and has hooked up with the site PolitiFact to check their statements after the fact.
When he proposed the idea, Rosen noted, "Now I don't contend this would solve the problem of the Sunday shows, which is structural. But it might change the dynamic a little bit." And indeed, part of what comes out of the Sunday show process is simply a product of what goes into in the form of guests and hosts. You can fact check polemicists all you like, but the best ones of them (who happen to be the ones that get booked on Sunday shows, it seems) can both stick to the facts and still present a skewed view of the world. Whoppers like where Rudy Giuliani ignored attacks against the United States under the Bush presidency drew attention in part because they're unusual. Fact checking is a start, but that leaves the entire universe of spin available to these talkers. And spin is much harder to police.
But at least guests will know that a little fact-checking angel is sitting on their shoulder. On set with Tapper this weekend will be Hillary Clinton, Defense Secretary Robert Gates and, wait for it...Rudy Giuliani.