Tonight I’ll be watching the vice presidential debate with friends at a local bar — and I’ll have my iPhone out, because I’ll be keeping an eye on Washingtonpost.com’s Fact Checker blog. During the first presidential debate, Michal Abramowitz, Michael Dobbs, and Glenn Kessler did a pretty good job of fact-checking several of the candidates’ claims soon after they were uttered on live TV. While there’s been no official announcement yet that this blog will offer live fact-checking during tonight’s VP debate, the feature was so popular last time that a repeat would seem likely.
I’ll also be watching Politifact, a resource from the St. Pete Times. Editor Bill Adair told me that tonight they’ll have a team of five journalists watching the VP debate and choosing some facts to check immediately. They will be publishing full truth-o-meter reports on these statements as soon as possible. “We hope to get at least three or four of these up while the debate is happening,” said Adair. (By the way, Politifact just debuted an iPhone-friendly version.)
I was just looking around to see who else might be offering live fact checking during tonight’s debate. I was surprised that I couldn’t find much else. (If I missed something, please post a link below in the comments.) Sadly, not even FactCheck.org managed to offer the live fact checking they promised for the first presidential debate, due to unspecified “technical problems.”
This coverage gap amazes me. Live fact checking seems like a natural fit that plays off the strengths of established news brands. After all, traditional journalists often tout fact-checking as one of the most valuable services they provide — and people do indeed claim to value fact checking and often cite it as a reason for loyalty to mainstream news brands. Offering this service during debates (or even Congressional hearings or other live civic events) could be a substantial traffic draw and brand-builder.
A comprehensive live debate fact-checking effort probably would require a sizable team of skilled journalists (or perhaps also librarians or other research professionals), and thus might be difficult and costly to pull off. But as the Post blog shows, even checking just some assertions of fact during a live event can draw substantial attention.
The bottom line is: there’s a demand for this kind of service. Many people already watch electoral debates with a computer or smart phone handy specifically to try to check up on claims. And many net users already attempt to collectively do their own live fact checking via social media such as Twitter and MySpace. Services such as Politifact and Google’s new In Quotes can help debate-watchers do some of their own fact checking, but more resources are needed — and news orgs can help fill this gap.
If this kind of project sounds too daunting for any one news organization to execute well, fast, and consistently, then maybe there could be a collaborative effort between news orgs — at least within a chain or network, if not more broadly. As the event unfolds, journalists at participating news orgs could “claim” and quickly research specific statements as they’re uttered, and then get the credit (and links) for publishing their analysis and supporting info. Just a thought.
Meanwhile, at Washingtonpost.com tonight, noted columnist and political theater critic Dana Milbank will be critiquing the VP debate live from St. Louis on Washington Sketch. He’ll be responding to reader questions and comments about “the things politicians say, and the absurd ways they find to say them.” You can also follow this discussion via RSS feed.
Also tonight, the home page of NYTimes.com will feature a live video stream of the vice presidential debate. This is the second time NYT has tried this — they also streamed live video during the first presidential debate. Live video is just one of several NYT debate-night features,including the “Debatinator” interactive video interface. This allows users to watch the entire debate in video, with the complete transcript available on screen right alongside. It also will include live blogging of the debates by Kit Seelye and other reporters — which hopefully will include some fact checking, not just punditry.
Finally, TechPresident recently published a good roundup of social media efforts to engage the public in the debates. Most of these appear to focus on opinions, reactions, and discussion — but who knows, some independent fact checking could come out of them. Two that sound particularly intriguing are Current.TV’s Hack the Debate (which will cover the VP debate with the help of Twitter users) and ThinkProgress.org.
What kind of live fact checking would you like to see during the debates? Why do you think we’re not seeing more of this? Please comment below.
