Washington (AFP) – Journalists have always faced up to facts, but a new wave of fact-checking journalism has gained prominence in the past decade to counter misleading or outrageous claims of political figures.
Notable among these are FactCheck.org, and PolitiFact, which won a Pulitzer Prize in 2009.
Following the notoriety in the United States, similar fact-checking news organizations have sprung up on every continent, gaining attention in places ranging from Egypt to Australia, Chile and France, according to a Duke University study.
Fact-checking journalism gains momentum

I might be a bit jaded, but I don’t see the excitement about a group of journalists checking what some politicians say. I know that in Journalism school they are supposed to teach that the facts are important, but it is usually accompanied by a wink of the eye since very few journalists ever bother with facts as they get in the way of a good story. And nowadays, the difference between a politician and a journalist is that one gets elected and the other is hired.

Al Gore’s child (A.K.A. The internet) is pretty good doing the fact-checking on both journalists and politicians. It is my belief that the Goremeister wishes he could have strangled that baby with its umbilical cord more than once by now.