Every time I read about fact-checking in journalism, I feel like there's a huge gap that nobody really talks about.
It's very easy to present a story that is 100% factually accurate, but that implies causal links or other claims that are not. Our brains love hasty generalizations, and media outlets rely on that to present near-100% truthful facts to their viewers, such that they jump to completely opposite generalizations. We're further primed for this with thought-terminating cliches like "trust the data" and "look at the facts". Media profits enormously from the subsequent outrage.
The more folks talk about "fact checking" without acknowledging the danger of cherry-picking and Texas sharpshooters and confounding variables, like in this article, the less I trust "fact checking" as a useful mechanism for forming opinions from their reported facts. Fact-checking is definitely a requirement, but still insufficient.
This is also exacerbated by narratives like those presented by TAL that introduce enormous complexity to the task, due to the emotional context.
You are of course correct that fact checking is not sufficient to protect us from all the ways that a journalistic work could mislead. But it does help when they are based on lies. As in the article this discussion is happening under. It helps address that problem, specifically. It seems like a strange reaction to say that this example of a lie being uncovered makes you less trustful of fact checking.
In addition to that, I am not sure if you have ever worked with an independent fact checker, but they very much do make an effort to point out misleading, cherry-picked, and out of context information.
You can have 100% fact based propaganda by cherry picking. This is not dissimilar to coming with a theory just based on your selected subset of preferred observations. This is the fuel of conspiracy theories.
I completely agree with you. Necessary but insufficient. One needs to approach your view of reality like the scientific process, looking to disprove your theories, not looking for facts that reinforce them.
It's very easy to present a story that is 100% factually accurate, but that implies causal links or other claims that are not. Our brains love hasty generalizations, and media outlets rely on that to present near-100% truthful facts to their viewers, such that they jump to completely opposite generalizations. We're further primed for this with thought-terminating cliches like "trust the data" and "look at the facts". Media profits enormously from the subsequent outrage.
The more folks talk about "fact checking" without acknowledging the danger of cherry-picking and Texas sharpshooters and confounding variables, like in this article, the less I trust "fact checking" as a useful mechanism for forming opinions from their reported facts. Fact-checking is definitely a requirement, but still insufficient.
This is also exacerbated by narratives like those presented by TAL that introduce enormous complexity to the task, due to the emotional context.