The American Press Institute just released a study of fact checking. From the report...
*More than eight in 10 Americans have a favorable view of political fact-checking.
*Fact-checking is equally persuasive whether or not it uses a “rating scale” to summarize its findings.
*Fact-checks of inaccurate statements are more persuasive when the consumer and the politician belong to the same political party.
*Democrats, in general, have a more favorable view of and are somewhat more persuaded by fact-checking journalism than Republicans.
Those last two are not surprising to me at all. I think people are not looking for fact checking because they are searching for the truth. They are looking to debunk someone from the other side of the aisle. Democrats like it more, because Republicans who only watch, read and listen to conservative press are being told completely different stories than the Democrats--with totally different facts and figures. When a Democrat hears those stories, they go fact checking. But both sides only love fact checking when it proves they are right. Fact checking does nothing if it proves them wrong. Republicans in particular can very easily dismiss it as biased. It's what they do to any story reported by the mainstream press. Democrats do it too, if the fact-checker is from the conservative press.
It's the reason why it's literally impossible to intelligently debate politics now. It's a complete waste of time. Even "fact checking" isn't enough to change anyone's mind--it's only used to confirm already held views.
