You don't get to screw up a fact-check and play the victim when you're criticized for it. That's not how this works.
Reporter Daniel Funke, who wrote USA Today's garbage "fact-check" about Biden checking his watch during a ceremony for the 13 U.S. soldiers killed Kabul, took to Twitter to address his error:
Funke said he "regret[s] the error," and then proceeded to lecture us on how "it's easy to dunk on journalists when [they] get things wrong."
He seriously wants us to read an article "about the principles [they] try to uphold at USA Today" after he flunked his own fact-check!
I'm not sure Funke quite understands the criticism of his report if his public reaction is to say it's "easy to dunk on journalists ... trying to do their best."
Calling out journalists, fact-checkers, and publications for false information is not a "dunk." It's called accountability.
We already know the reporters are fallible. That's precisely one of the reasons why many people don't just trust mainstream media.
He also said when "journalists and fact-checkers ... make mistakes" they correct them and try to make it right. That is just not true. Journalistic "mistakes" (if you can even call all of them that) are not always corrected, or even acknowledged by those at fault. And it's never the fact-checkers who pay the price ... it's the victims of their erroneous "fact-checks."
Lastly, he said "behind that screen is a person trying to do their best," referring to journalists. Let me break the news to Funke:
Not all reporters "behind that screen" are noble people "trying to do their best."
While I can't speak definitively on whether Funke's report was a mistake or a malicious lie, it is obvious there are many malicious journalists "behind that screen," too. Many are trying to do their best to accomplish evil things with their journalistic efforts. And many are just brainwashed ideologues.
A journalist "trying to do their best" is beside the point, anyway. If the reporting is wrong, then the criticism is warranted and the correction is necessary.
We don't need less accountability for reporting. We need more of it.
P.S. Now check out our latest video 👇
