The Night Fact Checking Died

I regret to inform you, but late last night, fact checking passed away.

The fact check, reborn on November 9th, 2016 at 10:47 a.m., left us too soon, but not without countless "Four Pinocchios," "Pants on Fires," and thousands of "false and misleading claims."

The media's response to President Trump's oval office address, where he advanced his arguments for border security and an end to the government shutdown, officially killed fact checking.

After hours of cable news hosts and pundits questioning whether they should even air the first oval office address of a sitting president of the United States, the networks relented. But they would be ready—armed with a team of fact checkers, ready to triumphantly call out Trump's "lies."

Well, it turns out, the mainstream press doesn't really know what a fact is. Or how arguments work. Let me try to explain: One can use facts and figures to try to persuade others to an argument. It's called a nuanced debate.

Despite the fact Trump didn't say anything false, our arbiters of The Truth™ had to "fact check" him anyway. And … it didn't go well.

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