{"id":45047,"date":"2022-03-29T13:15:52","date_gmt":"2022-03-29T17:15:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/?p=45047"},"modified":"2022-03-29T13:15:52","modified_gmt":"2022-03-29T17:15:52","slug":"do-the-fact-checkers-actually-check-the-facts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/?p=45047","title":{"rendered":"Do The Fact-Checkers Actually Check The Facts?"},"content":{"rendered":"

On Sunday, Forbes<\/a> posted an article about fact checkers. The article specifically focuses on the fact-checkers who ‘check facts’ in the areas of Covid-19 and climate change, two of the more controversial topics of the day.<\/p>\n

On the subject of Covid-19, the article notes:<\/p>\n

Over two years into the pandemic, some of the most basic questions remain contentious, and even questions of data integrity<\/a> remain mired in controversy. Are covid deaths over-reported<\/a> since many may have died with<\/em> covid rather than of<\/em> covid? Did lockdowns and masks make any discernible difference<\/a> to public health? Are there viable early treatments <\/a>for the disease available or are vaccines approved under Emergency Use Authorization by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) the only way to go? Are covid vaccines safe and effective<\/a>? To each of these questions, the overwhelming majority of the fact checking sites (or fact checking departments of the legacy media) support the reigning narrative articulated by big pharmaceutical companies, government agencies such as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the FDA, and key government officials such as Dr. Anthony Fauci. The Biden administration welcomes this, and goes further in calling social media companies such as Facebook to partner with the White House to \u201cfight misinformation\u201d about covid-19<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n

When three distinguished medical people released the Great Barrington Declaration which contradicted the administration’s policies, their ideas were immediately squelched without debate. That’s not how science is supposed to work.<\/p>\n

The article also discusses the climate-change fact-checkers:<\/p>\n

Like the media coverage of covid-19, climate change headlines in the mainstream media for the past three decades have been overwhelmingly one-sided. The basic premise is that the \u201cscience is settled\u201d as in a tweet<\/a> by then U.S. President Barack Obama in 2013: \u201cNinety-seven percent of scientists agree: climate change is real, man-made and dangerous\u201d with the obvious subtext: \u201cWho are you to challenge this?\u201d And, as in the covid-19 context, the marginalization of climate sceptics has a long track record.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Two examples suffice how fact checks and editorializing serve to ensure that sceptics need not apply for access to the wider public. The first relates to the London-based BBC, fondly known as \u201cbeebs\u201d, for its authoritative news broadcasts around the world as it emerged from the ashes of World War II. The British media giant was known and praised not only for its balanced news features but also for its nature documentaries. And in this space, two celebrities with the same first name \u2013 David Bellamy and David Attenborough \u2013 emerged in the 1970s, directing fascinating TV programs on nature and the environment from every corner of the globe into tens of millions of homes. As British commentator James Dellingpole<\/a> wrote in his eulogy to Bellamy who died in 2019, \u201cboth were superstars\u2026both were well on their way to becoming national treasures.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

Yet, while one, Attenborough, basks in the glow of international fame and is invited to many of the climate conferences as star speaker and delegate, the other claimed<\/a> he had become a pariah as soon as he rejected group-think on global warming \u2013 describing climate change as \u201cpoppycock\u201d. Though his climate scepticism killed his media career he remained utterly unrepentant. The BBC itself has made it clear<\/a> to its staff that it will not invite climate sceptics to its interviews and panel discussions to balance debates because the \u201cscience is settled\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

The article concludes:<\/p>\n

Without getting into details about the claims of the so-called factchecker, the key point here is to note the perversions of truth in representing the arguments critiqued in such \u201cfact checks\u201d. Perhaps this is best revealed by the fact that Facebook argued<\/a> in its legal defence that its cited fact check was \u201cjust opinion\u201d when faced by a lawsuit brought by celebrated journalist John Stossel who had posted two climate change videos.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Readers and viewers beware of this peculiar twist to the caveat emptor<\/em> clause: the \u201cfact checks\u201d used by the mainstream news outlets and social media to police what you read and watch are just opinions.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Please follow the link above to read the entire article. We are being played.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On Sunday, Forbes posted an article about fact checkers. The article specifically focuses on the fact-checkers who ‘check facts’ in the areas of Covid-19 and climate change, two of the more controversial topics of the day. On the subject of … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[55,12609,15110,15109,14127,3863,13295,350,15108,14876],"class_list":["post-45047","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-climate-change","tag-covid-19","tag-david-attenborough","tag-david-bellamy","tag-dr-anthony-fauci","tag-fact-checkers","tag-food-and-drug-administration-fda","tag-forbes","tag-james-dellingpole","tag-the-bbc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45047","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=45047"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45047\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":45048,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45047\/revisions\/45048"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=45047"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=45047"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=45047"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}