The Patriot Post® · Fact-Checkers Are Demo Donors

If, as Ronald Reagan once said, the nine most terrifying words in the English language are, “I’m from the government and I’m here to help,” then surely the nine most hilarious words are, “I’m a fact-checker and you can trust my objectivity.”

If this weren’t obvious enough already — that fact-checkers are human beings just like the rest of us and therefore subject to the same sorts of conscious and unconscious biases — a new report delivers a scathing indictment of the supposed neutrality and objectivity of these arbiters of truth.

An analysis of recent federal campaign finance disclosures found that nearly 100% of political donations from self-identified fact-checkers go to — you guessed it — Democrats. As The Washington Free Beacon reports:

The Free Beacon reviewed political donations over the past four election cycles from those who identified their occupation as “fact checker.” $22,580 of the $22,683 in political donations that came from self-identified fact checkers during that time — a whopping 99.5 percent — went to Democrats and liberal groups. Only three of the fact checker donations made during that period went to Republicans. Top recipients include socialist Vermont senator Bernie Sanders, who during the seven-year period received 10 times more fact checker money than every Republican combined.

What we want to know is, who are the comedians among this bunch who threw $103 toward the Republicans, and who did they think they were trying to fool?

The Free Beacon’s report names names, too: “Fact checkers for the New York Times and Reuters, for example, contributed to President Joe Biden, failed South Carolina Democratic Senate candidate Jaime Harrison, and liberal Massachusetts senator Elizabeth Warren’s presidential campaign. The Times fact checker, Cecilia Nowell, contributed three times to Warren’s failed presidential bid from 2019 to 2020 and still accepts ‘fact-checking assignments’ from the outlet on a freelance basis, according to her LinkedIn. Reuters, meanwhile, from 2020 to 2021 employed Carrie Monahan, daughter of veteran journalist Katie Couric, as a ‘fact check producer.’ Monahan during that time contributed to Biden, Harrison, and Georgia Democratic senator Jon Ossoff.”

Nope, no potential for media bias here.

One would think that even a semi-self-aware industry — especially one that trades in words such as trust and truth — would assiduously avoid such an obvious and disqualifying expression of bias into its ranks. One would think that those who claim to be fair and impartial while judging others would never allow their credibility to be so thoroughly undermined.

One would think. And one would be wrong.

Even if the political contributions were better balanced, say, 55-45, they’d still call into question the objectivity of every fact-checker who saw fit to throw money toward one political party and not another. How dense can these people be?

Incredibly dense, it seems — at least insofar as CNN’s resident fact-checker is concerned. As Fox News reports:

Two-and-a-half years into the Biden era, the number of CNN fact-checks of Donald Trump and Republican politicians continue to dwarf those of the current president.

CNN’s chief fact-checker Daniel Dale hasn’t published a fact-check of President Biden since March 30, according to his online database. Since that time, though, his database shows 21 bylined stories or on-air appearances that fact-checked claims made by Republicans, most of them by Trump.

Think about that: This guy hasn’t fact-checked Joe Biden since March 30.

Regular readers of The Patriot Post know this topic to be of special interest to us. Indeed, our managing editor, Nate Jackson, has called out this industry on topics from COVID to abortion. He’s also fact-checked the leftist “fact-checkers” at Snopes.

This Free Beacon report, though, is an animal of a different sort. After all, there are arguments to be made about one’s particular interpretation of events. Two people can see the same thing and come to different conclusions. No two people, however, can look at a 99.5% political funding disparity and come to a conclusion of objectivity of impartiality.

It’s the ultimate folly for fact-checkers to claim that they’re in any way free of the bias that routinely infects the mainstream media. Fact-checkers, after all, are the fruit of that same poisonous Leftmedia tree.

But whereas the American people have come to expect biased reporting from the mainstream press, they tend to accord fact-checkers a greater degree of credibility simply because they present themselves as especially trustworthy and truth-seeking.

After all, who would claim to be that which they’re not, right?

Fact-checkers would. And do.