title: majority of americans side with fbi over hillary
text: go to article 
  daniel greenfield a shillman journalism fellow at the freedom center is a new york writer focusing on radical islam 
  once upon a time factchecking meant that newspapers radio stations and television news broadcasts were obligated to check their facts before broadcasting or publishing them some newspapers and magazines boasted renowned departments filled with intellectuals whose restless minds roved over each line to ensure that the fewest possible errors would appear under that publications masthead 
  but factchecking of the media by itself has declined almost as badly as the roman empire errors routinely appear under storied mastheads followed by corrections that are published as a janitorial duty there is very little concern for the facts even among the great names of publishing and broadcasting 
  the media has stopped factchecking itself and it now uses factchecking largely to refer to a type of opinion journalism in which it checks the facts of public figures the fall of factchecking within the media has paralleled the rise of fact checking by the media of its political opponents the media has become factless even as it deploys a term that once meant selfcorrection to instead correct others 
  fact checks once meant that reporters were expected to be accurate these days theyre only expected to be politically correct the media deploys fact checks to check political correctness not facts its fact checks routinely venture into areas that are not only partisan but subjective matters of opinion 
  consider politicos often mocked fact check of donald trump as to whether isis was indeed unbelievably evil under a banner headline donald trumps week of misrepresentations exaggerations and halftruths it zoomed in on a quote from his florida rally 
  were presiding over something that the world has not seen the level of evil is unbelievable trump had said 
  politico swooped in to correct the candidate with its fact check judging one level of evil against another is subjective but other groups in recent history have without any question engaged in as widespread killing of civilians as isis 
  there were no facts being checked here because politico doesnt seem to know what a fact even is 
  the only information conveyed by this fact check is that politico like the rest of the media does not like donald trump and would find a way to argue with him if he said that the sky was blue 
  in the daily show media culture where overt bias and trolling are virtues factchecking is just another snotty variety of editorializing that attempts to compensate for perceptions of bias not with higher ethical and factual standards but by rebranding its editorials as fact checks to gain credibility 
  the isis evil fact check of trump came from the same media outlet whose white house reporter decided that the wisconsin flag which carries the date  to mark the states admission to the union was a flag for the local union wisconsin  politico ran an entire story asserting that obama was flying a labor flag to oppose governor walker because its reporter couldnt process basic history 
  this is what happens when media outlets think that factchecking is something that they do to republicans rather than to themselves 
  factchecking was one of those dinosaurs of journalism like objectivity which is viewed as largely irrelevant in a media culture whose edward r murrow is jon stewart todays millennial journalists spend most of their time exchanging sarcastic quips with their peers on twitter aspire to found their own vox sites and write viral blog posts that seek a new angle on a trending leftwing narrative 
  fact checks often function as narrative defenses and meme attacks thats why the washington post decided to fact check a saturday night live gag about obamas illegal alien amnesty its not that anyone imagines that saturday night live is in the business of producing facts that need checking the post was just worried that one of its jokes would go viral and hurt obama and his agenda 
  its the same reason that the paper fact checked a yearold boy who claimed he was blocked by obama on twitter this isnt about the facts its paranoia about social media narratives going viral 
  this is more understandable if you stop thinking of the media in the oldfashioned sense as a series of papers radio and television stations and start thinking of it as a massive machine that advocates for leftwing policies using its massive infrastructure and wealth to monopolize internet narratives 
  media outlets trade on their history but they dont resemble their past selves in any meaningful way 
  the new yorker once boasted a factchecking department that was famous for its range its depth and its resourcefulness in running down even the most obscure facts but what use is such a thing at david remnicks new yorker whose big draw comes from andy borowitzs insipid near parodies the new republic went from respected liberal publication to another snarky and shrill social justice blog cbs news cited a psychic site to explain that a fly landed on hillarys face to help her cope with stress 
  this isnt material that exists in the same realm as facts its snarky contempt alternating with lowest common denominator propaganda leftwing journalism like most leftwing culture is totalitarian antiintellectualism masquerading as enlightened intellectualism the soviet union was quite fond of culture it just hated the creative process that produced it because it was independent of communist ideology the left loves journalism it just hates the objectivity that validates journalism as more than propaganda 
  its this perverse antiintellectualism that turned factchecking from selfdiscipline to attack ad once journalism became pure leftwing advocacy it also became inherently correct by virtue of being leftwing and was not in need of having its facts checked when fact checks stopped being something that journalists did to themselves first facts and then fact checks became meaningless unable to even recognize a fact media fact checkers just wrote editorials which spiced their leftwing attacks on republicans liberally with cargo cult invocations to fact as if it were some deity 
  the average media fact check is a masterpiece of unintentional comedy for thinking adults 
  at the washington post  michelle yee fact checks donald trumps comment that hillarys email scandal is bigger than watergate and concludes that since watergate led to nixons resignation and hillarys email scandal has yet to lead to any convictions it cant be bigger than watergate since the scandal has yet to be resolved a fact check of it could only take place in the future 
  cnn featured toronto star fact checker daniel dale who claimed that trump said  lies in one day 
  the list of lies included deeming trumps statement that hillary would raise taxes false because her plan only taxes the rich asserting that there is no such thing as a phony poll and denying that hillary clinton had received debate questions some of these lies are themselves lies others like yee show an inability to even understand what a fact is and what can and cant be deemed false 
  just how degraded fact checking had become was made manifest when hillary clinton pleaded at the debate please fact checkers get to work her campaign site touted its own fact checking which was mostly indistinguishable from the medias fact checking that was a commentary on the transformation of the media into a leftwing politicians spin center 
  nearly every media outlet now boasts a fact check blog or headlines touting fact checks but the biggest fact checking department of the media rather than by the media isnt in the united states but in germany in america fact checking has become a type of partisan attack launched by media outlets at their political opponents its bigger than ever and also more worthless than ever because it is factless 
  and those who do it often not only dont know the facts but dont even know what a fact is