Perhaps always an oxymoron, the “truth” seems to have left Washington, DC in recent years. With so-called “fact checkers” now doing a brisk business assessing our elected officials’ statements and many news organizations becoming less adversarial to (independent of?) our nation’s politicians, it has become quite difficult for ordinary citizens to understand the tradeoffs involved in today’s complex issues. Assessing these statements requires digging well beyond the “sound bite,” consulting a variety of publications and sources, to get an even somewhat balanced perspective.
Question for next week (May 19): To what degree should the American public accept “lies,” half-truths, glaring omissions and/or misdirection from their elected officials and government?
National “fact checking resources:”
- Annenberg Public Policy Center FactCheck.org
- Washington Post (Glenn Kessler)
- Tampa Bay Times PolitiFact.com
See you next week!