At the 2012 Democratic Convention in Charlotte, N.C., I attended a taping of “The Daily Show” where Jon Stewart asked veteran television reporter Tom Brokaw a question I’ve remembered ever since.
Discussing the political fact-checking columns popping up in newspapers, Stewart asked Brokaw: “When did fact-checking and journalism separate anyway?”
I think that’s why The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel’s version of PolitiFact infuriates me so and why it has completely failed to serve any useful purpose in the razor-close election between Democratic candidate Mary Burke and Republican Gov. Scott Walker.
It’s an election that will make an enormous difference in whether a once-progressive state gets back on track to expand opportunities for everyone in Wisconsin or continues following right-wing policies fattening those at the top while diminishing jobs, wages and opportunities for everyone else.
At a time when voters have never had a greater need for the truth about what their political leaders are doing to them, local daily journalism appears to be following strict orders from corporate to stop providing it.
The standard election story today is reported as a he-said-she-said story. One side says one thing. The other side says just the opposite.
And nobody—least of all, intelligent, experienced journalists who are well-educated and knowledgeable about complicated public issues—should ever inform the public which side is telling the truth and which side is getting away with murder by telling brazen lies.
The reason for the shift away from what has always been the mission of journalism, informing the public on important issues, is the declining circulation and continued downsizing of Milwaukee’s daily newspaper.
Having read expert analysis by its Washington reporter Craig Gilbert on Wisconsin’s extreme political polarization, management doesn’t want its election reporters offending any of those extremists by reporting anything that disturbs them.
So fact-checking is now limited to oh-so-ponderously pondering the veracity of political statements in such a muddled, misleading way that it has become totally irrelevant.
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PolitiFact was never really a journalistic effort. It was public relations. The real purpose was to demonstrate to suburban readers that the newspaper was no longer that horrible liberal media conservatives complain about. Boy, was it not.
PolitiFact could praise and support statements by Walker as “True” no matter how misleading they were. It also could nit-pick statements by Burke with the most petty and conservative of them.
When PolitiFact was forced to acknowledge Walker’s most glaring lies as “False,” it made sure to balance it politically by accusing Democrats of lying too, whether they had or not.
Most people realized PolitiFact was useless as an arbiter of truth on Sunday, Aug. 31. That’s when it published side-by-side headlines from Burke and Walker: “Mary Burke Says Wisconsin Ranks Last in Midwest Job Growth” and “Scott Walker Says Wisconsin Third in Midwest Jobs Created.” It rated Burke’s statement “True” and Walker’s “Mostly True.”
Instead of clearly reporting which candidate was honest and which one wasn’t, PolitiFact demonstrated how Walker could deceptively phrase a dishonest public statement to have it declared “Mostly True” by PolitiFact.
PolitiFact Misses the Big Lies
While PolitiFact splits hairs over word choices and statements most voters never hear, it totally misses the big political truths and really big political lies dominating the governor’s race.
It doesn’t just miss the forest for the trees. It misses all the trees as well by focusing on twigs and blades of grass.
If PolitiFact really wanted to clarify the political facts that matter before the election, it would explain how issues such as jobs, taxes, education, environmental destruction, union rights, pay equity and health care all fit together.
The newspaper has reported Walker took on state employee unions. But the truth is far bigger than that. Walker didn’t just destroy unions. He destroyed the livelihoods of working people all over the state, resulting in wage cuts, job layoffs and early retirements.
By destroying worker protections for their own wages, hours and working conditions, Walker closed a $3 billion budget deficit by taking it out of the hides of public workers, educators and working class folks throughout the state.
That’s why Walker’s failed to create anywhere close to the 250,000 jobs he promised. Walker has met the enemy and it’s him. With Wisconsin workers having much less money to spend on goods and services, factories and businesses here have taken much longer to recover than in other states.
Further damaging Wisconsin’s economy, Walker then took the money workers lost through wage and job cuts and redistributed it to the wealthy through tax cuts and corporate welfare that went overwhelmingly to the upper class.
Despite all the efforts, including PolitiFact’s, to cover up those real political facts, polls show Burke on the verge of victory if she simply turns out all those who understand far too well what Walker’s doing to Wisconsin.
