FILE - Independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr., center right, leaves the Albany County Courthouse, Aug. 6, 2024, in Albany, N.Y. (AP Photo/Hans Pennink, File)
By JEFF AMY and CHARLOTTE KRAMON Associated Press
ATLANTA (AP) — Challengers seeking to throw Robert F. Kennedy Jr. of
This bot comment adds nothing of value and only wastes page space, which is actually an improvement over the bot’s typical function. MBFC is a threat to media literacy on Lemmy.
Fact-checking is an essential tool in fighting the waves of fake news polluting the public discourse. But if that fact-checking is partisan, then it only acerbates the problem of people divided on the basics of a shared reality.
This is why a consortium of fact-checking institutions have joined together to form the International Fact-Checking Network (IFCN), and laid out a code of principles. You can find a list of signatories as well as vetted organizations on their website.
MBFC is not a signatory to the IFCN code of principles. As a partisan organization, it violates the standards that journalists have recognized as essential to restoring trust in the veracity of the news. Partisan fact-checking sites are worse than no fact-checking at all. Just like how the proliferation of fake news undermines the authority of journalism, the growing popularity of a fact-checking site by a political hack like MBFC’s man behind the curtain, Dave M. Van Zandt, undermines the authority of non-partisan fact-checking institutions in the public consciousness.
“Media Bias/Fact Check (MBFC News) adheres to the International Fact-Checking Network Fact-checkers’ Code of Principles. The Poynter Institute developed these principles to promote excellence and standardization in Fact-Checking.”
Seems like they are on board with those principals. Also, explain how it’s partisan please.
Membership in the IFCN provides a method for member organizations to be held accountable to the IFCN code.
Would you trust an organization that claims to follow a code, but has either been denied and had their membership rescinded for violations of that code, or has chosen to avoid being held accountable in the first place?