Fact Check Fever
25th May 2020
I am getting very tired of all of the pretended ‘fact checks’ that occupy what is available to read on the Internet these days. Most of them aren’t ‘fact checks’ at all, but merely an excuse to assert the writer’s opinion as superior to that of whomever is being ‘fact checked’.
The ‘fact check’ originated in journalism as a way of verifying that something asserted as fact in an article was, in truth, a ‘fact’, i.e. something that actually existed in reality, presumably as opposed to an opinion, upon which rational minds might disagree. Fact checks were undertaken by people hired by a publican for that purpose, much like the similar assistants who were assigned to verify the origin of quotations and those who edited copy to make sure it conformed to correct spelling, grammar, and style.
That notion has in recent times been weaponized and is now wielded by people who are most accurately characterized as busy-body know-it-alls, people who mistake their own opinions for Truth and aren’t shy about sharing that supposition with the rest of us.
Feh.