Working Up

by Dwayne Phillips

A problem with fact checking is that people write so poorly these days we cannot find the facts in seemingly factual statements.

Fact checking and the absence or removal of fact checking has been in the news recently. Some society media outlets have removed fact checking and such for something else called “moderation.”

Anyways, there are some inconvenient aspects to fact checking. One is simply that stuff is written so poorly we cannot find the facts to check. Oh, there is the basic, “Water boils at 37°F.” Aha! Fact checking shows that to be misinformation (a more mysterious way of saying “incorrect” or just plain “wrong”).

Now consider, “It is reported that schooling from home during the pandemic caused poorer scores on standardized tests.”

Gosh, it sounds like there are some facts in there that we could check, but I’m not sure. Someone reported a drop in scores. What scores? How do they link the pandemic to those scores? Who analyzed this? There is passive voice, there is some vague notion of attending school, “the pandemic” is mentioned but without dates, this all occurred somewhere but that isn’t mentioned, and what is poorer? Did scores fall 0.1% or 10.1% or what? What scores? What tests?

I find the poor writing of the second example to be far more prevalent than the crisp and factual writing of the first example.

Now, do a fact check on the above sentence. Gosh. This falls apart quickly. And gosh, that prior sentence cannot be fact checked either.