Fact-Checking Scapegoating Sanctimony
The Atlantic gave Ruth Shalit a ‘second chance’ 25 years after a journalism scandal. It ended with an ugly correction.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/media/2020/10/31/ruth-shalit-atlantic-niche-sports-correction/
Shirley Jackson's "The Lottery" comes to mind by this sacrificing, scapegoating, throwing under the bus, Trump beheading, oh so Halloweening of Ms. Shalit by the oh so sanctimoniousing Atlantic.
"Fact-checking" is the caveperson's club to hammer the storyteller's tasty meatloaf into roach-infested tabloidism.
As if "news' is not enriched fictional hamburger from the get-go, sauced with prize-winning braggardy, anonymous tipsters, unctuous guides to food, real estate, love, scandal, politics, or the very worst of lying, cheating, exaggerating, exculpating, hero-mongering, torturing pro and con, campaigns of exalting this or that movement, highest horse puckey, national security, the life-blood of the ridiculous marbleized piles of glorification of few hundred "democratically elected" representatives ghoulishly arrayed in made-up biographies.
"Accurate and honest" fact-checking would exterminate the news media, the field of journalism, the profession of law, the religion of everyone, the perdurability of marriage and especially parenthood, the vanity empire of education especially "the elite," the disgusting and repugnant campaigns for governmental office holding, the abominable ethics of business, and most recently the sleazy and villainous "cybersecurity."
The Atlantic's hair shirt apologia is matched by Wemple's lizard-skinned critique. Two tarantulas in bottle wrestling for "trustworthiness," a steady diet these days of news obesity whereby Goop and Zoom grapple for ever bigger gobs of reader data-transgression by blocking ad-blockers, siphoning behavior for reselling to mendacious peddlers who have no hesitation about 0-fact-checked products.
Goodness gracious, this is a tiny tempest about nothing new, and what won't make the cut in "reputable" news outlets will be featured on Substack by disreputables booted by billionaire-flattering "fearless" outlets.
Omidyar's The Intercept fails with Reality Winner, Bezos's The Washington Post fails with Ruth Shalit.