“Fact-checking” has blossomed into a journalistic industry. Too bad it’s so corrupt. By corrupt I mean dishonest. The latest example comes by way of the October 3rd edition of the New York Times.
On the first page of the “National” section there is a full-page spread listing 21 instances where Sen. JD Vance and Gov. Tim Walz said things during their debate that the paper deemed worthy of fact-checking. Vance was subjected to 17 of them.
Of the 17 quotes by Vance that were analyzed, only once was what he said deemed to be true. Four of his remarks were deemed false. The other twelve were scored as either “exaggerated,” “misleading” or “needs context.” By contrast, of the four quotes by Walz that were scrutinized, one was deemed to be true, one was said to be false and the other two were scored “misleading” or “exaggerated.”
It is not our job to fact-check issues that are outside our domain, but the very first one that was selected—Vance’s criticism of Walz’s position on abortion—is right in our orbit.
The Times opens with the following quote by Vance: “The statute you signed into law, it says a doctor who presides over an abortion where the baby survives—the doctor is under no obligation to provide lifesaving care to the baby who survives a botched late-term abortion.”
Kate Zernike scored this as a false statement, saying, “Mr. Vance is distorting the so-called born alive law that had been in effect in Minnesota since the 1970s. That law required doctors to report when a ‘live child’ was ‘born as the result of an abortion,’ and to provide ‘all reasonable measures consistent with good medical practice’ to care for that infant.”
Zernike completely misrepresents what the law said.
She only acknowledges the first part of the second sentence of the 1976 law. Here is what the entire sentence says: “All reasonable measures consistent with good medical practice, including the compilation of appropriate medical records, shall be taken to preserve the life and health of the child (my italics).”
The law signed by Walz in 2023 deleted the italicized words, replacing them with “to care for the infant who is born alive.”
As I pointed out yesterday, “To ‘care for an infant’ is not the same as to ‘preserve the life’ of an infant. Keeping the baby warm is a poor substitute for keeping him alive.”
This is inexcusable. When “fact-checkers” are proven wrong, it undermines their credibility and the media outlet they work for. The bias that pervades the mainstream media, especially on abortion, is astounding.
And by the way, the law Walz signed is only tangentially related to abortion. To intentionally fail to treat an infant who survives an abortion is called infanticide, however passive the means.
Contact the “fact-checker”: zernike@nytimes.com
