Fact-checker: Ads' facts checkered

[NeoConsSuck]

http://www.usatoday.com/news/politicselections/nation/president/2004-04-05-ads-facts_x.htm


Unfair and inaccurate TV ads have so far been more of a problem in this presidential campaign than in other elections, says the director of an independent group that is tracking their truthfulness.
"We've seen some that are off-base, out of context and outright false," says Brooks Jackson of the Annenberg Political Fact Check, a project of the Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania (Web site: www.factcheck.org).

"This job is kind of like that carnival game Whack-a-Mole," says Jackson, a former reporter for The Wall Street Journal, the Associated Press and CNN. "And there's more whacking to do than ever."

And the ads presumably do have an impact on voters' thinking. In mid-February, before the Bush campaign began airing ads aimed at Democratic candidate John Kerry, the Massachusetts senator had a 28-percentage-point lead in 17 key states, according to a USA TODAY/CNN/Gallup Poll. By the end of March, President Bush held a slight lead in those states.

[Jeff in Cincinnati]

1. Utter Crapola...

Brooks Jackson spent his entire "journalistic" career whoring at the Wall Street Journal and now wants to pass himself off as an unbiased "truth detector." His criticism of the Kerry ads -- which was featured to the NBC News last night, includes the basic assertion that Kerry can't prove that Bush is creating jobs overseas. As though the loss of nearly three million jobs in three years isn't proof enough. Facts are facts, and Jackson's organization is engaged in pure spin.

[NeoConsSuck]

2. Thanks for filling me in..

I knew nothing of this factchecker site, but I knew somehow the words "Wall Street Journal" and "fact" didn't belong together in the same sentence.

I'm even starting to lose faith in USA Today as being semi-impartial.

No wonder the American public is blindly following the * policies.