The News-Register doesn't understand what a fact checker does
Given their attitude toward facts, is this surprising?
This afternoon's lead editorial in the Wheeling News-Register takes the AP fact checker to task for (how can I delicately put this?) actually checking the facts. Here is how the editorial begins:
One of those "fact check" analyses of presidential candidate Donald Trump's speech on the economy made the limits of such writing very clear. In a nutshell, one of its conclusions was simplistic - and very misleading.
Trump gave a major speech Monday, outlining his plans for tax cuts intended to get the economy out of the doldrums. He accused his opponent, Hillary Clinton, of proposing to increase taxes on middle-income Americans.
She never said that, the fact checkers pointed out.
True enough.
So how is this "simplistic and very misleading?" The editorial continues by going beyond the "facts":
But Clinton's policies would take more money out of the pockets of all Americans, including the middle class and the poor.
Her plan to finish the work started by President Barack Obama, of wrecking the coal industry and shutting down coal-fired power plants, would mean much higher electric bills for tens of millions of families. Some could pay as much as $1,000 a year more for electricity.
Hey, there's that $1000 a year increase regularly trotted out by Mike Myer, local "newspaper" editorials, Murray Energy officials and most recently, Shelley Moore Capito. (Note -- Murray Energy officials probably love to use this statistic because they were part of the coal group that funded the original research and they want to make sure they get their money's worth.) For an extended analysis on the credibility of this statistic, see here.
I've complained previously about how our locals usually don't print the AP fact checker after major political addresses. The reason is a simple one: when you believe it's your paper's mission to put forth a certain political dogma, facts and fact checking can be really inconvenient -- especially when it's so much easier to just substitute your own bogus evidence.