The president is the most powerful man in the country, and he has to submit to the scrutiny of the press. For this purpose, the media has been created for a very specific motive: to identify which of the president's statements are true and which are false.
The fact-checkers were hard at work on Donald Trump, showing every false claim made by the former president as a medal on his chest. But since Joe Biden has been in the White House, they have stopped working. Why could this be?
Donald Trump: The golden age of fact-checkers
This is what Joe Concha, a columnist specializing in the media, wonders. Concha recalls that during Donald Trump's presidency there was a golden era of fact-checkers.
The Washington Post did a story on Donald Trump's 30,573 lies. The New York Times published the definitive list of the Republican's lies. The Gray Lady is a prodigy in the practice of journalism: Each Trump statement, with its corresponding date, is linked to a news article proves why it's false.
But that momentum to separate the wheat from the chaff in the president's speech has been lost since January 2021, when Joe Biden took office. Joe Concha explains in The Hill:
With President Biden, the fact checkers are either enjoying what seems like an extended vacation or have simply retired in terms of scrutinizing the many ways he is misleading the public. CNN fact-checker Daniel Dale is a good example of the apathy to hold the current president accountable.
Biden has not stopped lying
Dale has not written anything about Biden's claims since July. As Biden's popularity plummeted and the November elections approached, CNN's momentum to brand the president as a liar has faded.
One possible interpretation is that Joe Biden has changed, after 50 years in politics, and now all his claims are true. However, after looking at what he has said in public in recent months, that doesn't seem to be the case. Politifact collects numerous examples of the president's lies.
Politifact: bias in the number of declarations
Politifact, as a matter of fact, is an example of bias with the last two presidents. There is a big difference in the number of times they have subjected presidents to the Truth-o-meter (Biden 156, Trump 853). The zeal between one politician and the other has been very different. The first Politifact story involving Joe Biden dates back to 2007, making that 10 statements that have been fact-checked per year. In Trump's case, they have only been monitoring his speech for 11 years, so that makes an average of 78 fact-checked statements per year.
Joe Concha points to other examples, such as those contained by The Hill on Joe Biden's favorite lies about the economy. But they also points out that the fact-checkers' disinterest in doing their job affects White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre. Politifact has not fact checked her since June.
Pew Research Center shows that seven out of ten Republicans believe that news fact-checkers act with bias. The journalist does not answer the question he himself asked: what is the reason for the fact-checkers' bias in favor of the Democratic Party, and especially against the Republican Party?
One possible interpretation is that there was much more freedom of the press under the Trump Administration than under Biden's, but this does not seem likely. It may simply be the usual press bias.
