Brian Stelter Hyperventilating Over the ‘Assault’ on Fact Checking

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Fact-checking is under attack. As Twitchy reported Tuesday, the International Fact-Checking Network convened an emergency meeting after Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg announced that it was breaking up with Politifact and moving to a system mirroring X’s Community Notes. CNN senior media analyst Brian Stelter called it Facebook’s “MAGA makeover.”

Stelter had more to say on the air Wednesday about this new attack on fact-checking.

Meta’s surprise decision to scrap its fact-checking partnerships – blindsiding journalists involved in the program and putting some out of work – is part of a much bigger shift in media and politics. The 2016 phrase “war on truth” comes to mind…

— Brian Stelter (@brianstelter) January 8, 2025

The very notion of fact-checking is under assault by a wide array of fact-challenged politicians and interest groups. Particularly on the right, “fact-check” has been turned into a dirty word, one that presupposes the fact-checker is actually suppressing some inconvenient truth.

— Brian Stelter (@brianstelter) January 8, 2025

Particularly on the right … we wonder why that is. Why are conservatives so enamored with conspiracy theories and not the cold, hard facts as reported by outlets like CNN?

Stelter and Liam Reilly report for CNN:

The very notion of fact-checking is under assault by a wide array of fact-challenged politicians and interest groups. Particularly on the right, “fact-check” has been turned into a dirty word, one that presupposes the fact-checker is actually suppressing some inconvenient truth.

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg played right into that assumption on Tuesday when he insulted fact-checkers as “too politically biased” and said they “have destroyed more trust than they’ve created, especially in the U.S.”

…

Now, some of those outlets may be forced to shut down once Meta’s financial support dries up.

“This is a blow to our website and the work that we do,” Jesse Stiller, managing editor of Check Your Fact, told CNN. “We are going to be impacted greatly and our operations will be grounded to a halt. This is not good for discourse and dialogue.”

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Sorry, but we’re all cried out over PolitiFact losing its Zuckerbucks for censoring conservative political posts.

Wake up your own fact-checker Daniel Dale from his four-year nap and ask him: is the idea that fact-checking has become too politically biased fact or fiction? Dale’s fact-checks don’t only go in one direction … it’s just that 99 percent of the time they do.

Checking facts is just journalism. That’s under attack by propagandists such as CNN. “fact” “checking,” is under attack for being one-sided propaganda to advance Democrat narratives and censor speech the left wishes weren’t allowed to exist.

— Mollie (@MZHemingway) January 8, 2025

Listen up, Idaho. The list of “fact checks” that are either complete nonsense and/or outright lies is almost endless. And they pretty much all come from your side of the political aisle. Is your spud-brain actually that useless that it will not even acknowledge that fact?

— Physics Geek (@physicsgeek) January 8, 2025

No, Stelter, it’s the media that turned “fact-check” into a dirty word by using this tactic dishonestly for political purposes.

— Jack Wilson (@jwilson1717) January 8, 2025

The fact checkers regularly proved to be wrong and one-sided. That’s why it’s under attack.

— Tim Carney (@TPCarney) January 8, 2025

“Fact checkers” destroyed their credibility, @brianstelter. A lot like journalists did.

For the same reason.

— Andrea E (@AAC0519) January 8, 2025

“Fact checking,” in its modern sense, was created because journalists had lost their credibility.
Now that “fact checking” has lost its credibility, I wonder what new media position will be created to bolster the narrative.

— God’s Whale Facts Decider Cow (@inane_gimmick) January 8, 2025

We’ve seen fact-checkers embarrass themselves, over and over. How many times do we have to see it before it impacts our view of them?

— DenverGooner (@TheBlueMask1964) January 8, 2025

The sitting president told us multiple times his son died in Iraq, and reporters just let it slide.

Fact-checking is totalitarian by nature.

Bunch of sissies proclaiming themselves the arbiters of truth.

Proponents of fact checkers hate community notes because they have to actually tell the truth or risk being humiliated.

— Wayne Ryder ⎸ Cowboy Talk (@Deeply_Wise) January 8, 2025

It’s not that “fact-checking” is a bad word – its that it is an abuse of the left. It has been a manipulation of reality to force a direct narrative. It was never about the “facts” – but only about the approved facts. Thats what you are unwilling to understand.

— Brandon Edwards (@FioreUnited) January 8, 2025

Stelter knows this.

Unfortunately, Brian, most all “fact checkers” lost their credibility. Credibility is paramount in fact checking and journalism. Sorry to inform you , your credibility was destroyed long ago.

— Dr. G “The reckoning tour”. (@blounttruthnow) January 8, 2025

Maybe this wouldn’t have happened if the “fact checkers” hadn’t lied so much. Just like you with your dumb little CNN show.

— ThatGuyFromHS (@ThatGuyFromHS) January 8, 2025

Community Notes for the win.

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