A contentious interview between Hugh Hewitt and Aaron Sharockman (3/28/17), executive director of PolitiFact.com, caught my attention. Apparently, differences between supportable points of view are shoe-horned into true/false judgments by PolitiFact. By so doing, sites like PolitiFact can distort the nature of the dispute and mislead the public.
At issue was PolitiFact’s slapping of “false” on Hewitt’s claim that the Obamacare exchanges are experiencing a “death spiral”. In fact, it’s an easily supportable point of view. Sources can be cited in support of it. Instead, the PolitiFact journalist quickly labeled it “false” after cursory digging.
Understanding a “death spiral” requires knowing the difference between “collapse” and “collapsing”. In regards to the Obamacare exchanges, the high deductibles, costly premiums, shrinking involvement by medical practitioners, and withdrawal of insurance providers from many markets has discouraged the younger and healthier to opt out of the pool making them unsustainable — thus, a death spiral. It is collapsing, but hasn’t collapsed yet. The death spiral describes a collapsing insurance market. PolitiFact’s journalist doesn’t know the difference, nor the fact that it is a defensible position.
The simplistic approach may have much to do with an inadequate educational preparation for our younger wave of journalists: people who inherently have a predilection for quick, snappy judgments.
The impetuousness of their youth isn’t tempered by a deeper understanding of the major issues of life – something a better education could offset. Instead, having never grappled with the major battles of ideas throughout history, and in many cases unaware of their existence, leads them into premature judgments.
35-year-old Aaron Sharockman, himself, is a case in point. Exploratory questions into his background and preparation would lead one to believe that he isn’t well-read in the literary classics pertinent to his college major: Political Science/Journalism. Other than “1984” – something that could have been read in high school – he’s had no exposure to anything else that might enlighten him of the totalitarian mindset.
The totalitarian mindset, as described in books like “Darkness at Noon”, seeks to control thought by forestalling the presence of other points of view from space in public discussion by branding them “false”, “not preferable”, “wrong”. Is PolitiFact performing the function of Gletkin in “Darkness at Noon” or the Ministry of Truth in “1984”?
The modern fact-checker seems to be stepping into the role of truth-controller.
RogerG