Fact-Checking Websites (like Full Fact) and Their Own Political Bias
Contents:
i) Introduction
ii) Full Fact and Other Fact-Checking Websites
iii) The BBC News Website
iv) An Example of Full Fact’s Biased Wording
Political bias isn’t always — or necessarily — expressed through “fake” facts, statistics or quotes. There are many other ways to express political bias. And fact-checking websites themselves often display some of the other ways in which political bias can be expressed.
… And to just to be clear about this piece.
Yes; it is politically biased. It’s politically biased by virtue of the simple fact that I’ve chosen a particular subject matter to write on. And, indeed, it’s politically biased in that I’ve concentrated on a specific fact-checking website (i.e., Full Fact). Yet this is precisely what fact-checking websites also do — they select what to write on. And the subjects, facts, and statistics they select display that political bias. In this sense, bias isn’t necessarily a bad thing. It’s an unavoidable result of writers with strong political views — and no political writer would write if he didn’t have strong political views — tackling specific subjects. And all that applies just as much to the writers of fact-checking websites as it does to the journalists who write for the Daily Mail or Novara Media..
Having said all that, I hope that there are no false statistics, figures or quotes in this piece. And, in that sense alone, this piece — again — is no different to BBC News (see later), Full Fact and other fact-checking websites. In fact my own political bias is more open in that (to give just one example) I’d never use the grandstanding and self-righteous term “non-partisan” (see later section) to refer to my own writings on political issues
Full Fact and Other Fact-Checking Websites
Fact-checking websites and organisations seem to be a little naive (or perhaps disingenuous) when it comes to their own self-publicity. Take Full Fact’s sale’s pitch. It says of itself:
“We don’t take sides in any debate and don’t support any political party or campaign. We’ve been quoted by politicians on all sides and corrected people on all sides. We have a cross-party Board of Trustees and safeguards in place at every level of our organisation to ensure our neutrality.”
Firstly, let’s give Full Fact the benefit of the doubt and happily accept that all its facts, statistics and quotes are correct. The big problem here is that this still leaves many options which Full Fact can use to express its own political bias.
Interestingly enough, Full Fact itself doesn’t just correct the facts — it’s also an activist political organisation. For example, one of its pieces is titled: ‘Full Fact calls on the Prime Minister to correct the record on poverty’. Now you’d think that Full Fact would simply hope (or want) politicians, political activists and concerned citizens themselves to read its facts (or corrections) and then call on the Prime Minister. Yet, instead, Full Fact itself feels called upon to call on the British Prime Minister.
One clear example of bias is how the pieces in fact-checking websites are actually worded. There’s also the case of precisely which (fake) facts are selected and which (fake) facts are ignored. In addition, there’s the similar issue of precisely which subjects are covered and which subjects aren’t covered. For example, there are ten pages of entries on “asylum seekers”, ten pages of entries on “immigration”, ten (almost entirely critical) pages of entries on the “Daily Mail”, ten (almost entirely positive) pages of entries on the “European Union”, etc. in Full Fact.
In other words, “fake news” isn’t all about fake facts: it’s also about editorial selection.
So what if the writers for fact-checking websites concentrate entirely on stories about only particular newspapers, politicians or political parties? Wouldn’t that constitute political bias? Similarly, what if these websites only “fact checked” claims and stats which have been stated by politicians or newspapers of only a certain political viewpoint? Wouldn't that display political bias too? And, from what I’ve seen of many fact-checking websites, this is precisely what often happens.
So isn’t political bias and selectivity (at least when they masquerade as “fact-checking”) almost as dangerous to “civic discourse” as fake news or fake figures? Indeed Full Fact itself doesn’t always feature untruths — it also tackles what it calls “misleading” figures or stats. That is, figures or stats that aren’t actually false. Instead, Full Fact believes them to have been stated (as the phrase goes) “without context”. Yet that’s the nature of stats and figures — including Full Fact’s very own stats and figures. So the figures, stats and facts don’t need to be false in order to still be politically biased — or, indeed, to be misleading.
The fact (if there are facts about such things) is that correct stats and figures can’t — in themselves - decide a political issue. Apart from the selective and biased use of otherwise correct facts, there’s much more to honest and unbiased politics than getting your facts right. Perhaps the writers of fact-checking websites would happily admit that.
Moreover, to be crude but factual: fact-checking websites and organisations are run and written by human beings. Many human beings have strong emotions and strong political views. (The writing team of Full Fact includes ex-Guardian and ex-BBC journalists — see here.) All this is bound to reflect itself in the pieces Full Fact publishes. Again, this doesn’t mean that a fact-checking website will lie or give false information. Of course not. But it will be the case that the fact-checkers may — or will — be biased in their wording and highly selective in the subjects they choose. They’ll also be very choosy about the fake facts they tackle.
The Fact-Checking Business
It seems that fact-checking is quite a politically and financially (see here) rewarding concern. Here’s a list of the main “fact-checkers” in the UK:
1) BBC Reality Check: This website states the following about itself: “BBC Reality Check is dedicated to examining the facts and claims behind a story to try to determine whether or not it is true.”
2) Full Fact
3) FactCheckNI: This was the first “independent” fact-checking service for Northern Ireland. It was launched in 2016.
4) FactCheck Channel 4 News: This is a fact-checking blog run by Channel 4 News.
5) Ferret Fact Service: Another self-described “non-partisan” fact-checker. It’s based in Scotland and was launched in 2017.
As for the United States:
1) Climate Feedback: This website says that it is “dedicated to fact-checking [the] media coverage of climate change”.
2) FactCheck.Org: This website says of itself that it “advocates for voters [and] aims to reduce the level of deception and confusion in U.S. politics”.
3) Fact Checker — The Washington Post: This website was created in 2007 by Washington Post writer Michael Dobbs. It ceased operation in November 2008 It was relaunched in January 2011.
4) Media Bias/Fact Check: This is a website which “rates factual accuracy and political bias in news media”. (See the note at the end of this piece.)
5) PolitiFact: This website was created 2007. It “uses the ‘Truth-o-Meter’ to rank the amount of truth in public persons’ statements”.
6) Snopes: This website says of itself that it’s “the internet’s definitive fact-checking resource”.
And we even have a meta fact-checker:
7) RealClearPolitics: In 2018, Kalev Leetaru (an American “internet entrepreneur” and academic) said that RealClearPolitic’s job is one of “checking the fact checkers”. It also aims to “explore how the flagship fact-checking organizations operate in practice (as opposed to their self-reported descriptions), from their claim and verification sourcing to their topical focus to just what constitutes a ‘fact’”.
It’s also odd that Middlebury Libraries classes the following fact-checkers as “non-partisan”. That’s considering the fact that it includes The Washington Post, whose journalists and editors have often admitted to their own party-political bias (see side image too). So, here again, providing accurate facts, stats and figures (that’s if this is always the case in the first place) doesn’t actually entail being non-partisan.
So here’s the Middlebury Libraries list of non-partisan fact-checkers:
1) FactCheck.org
2) Annenberg Political Factcheck
3) FactChecker (Washington Post)
4) PolitiFact.com
5) Snopes.com
6) PunditFact
The BBC News Website
Now take the British Broadcasting Organisation (or BBC), which is funded by the British government and by tens of millions of British licence-fee payers. More specifically, take BBC News.
In very broad terms, BBC News often shows its political bias by what it focuses on; what it misses out; who it does and does not quote; etc. In other words, BBC News rarely shows its political bias by plain politicking (or editorialising). BBC News also quotes ideologically-correct people far more extensively than it does what leftwing BBC-types — and Gordon Brown — call “bigots”. In addition, bias is shown in the very selection of stories which are covered; as well as by those stories which are deliberately ignored. And even within that context, we can add the fact that this bias includes which aspects of these already-selected stories are themselves selected.
Another (as it were) self-defence used by BBC is that it’s keen to state that it has “ensured both sides had the chance to express their views”. That’s the stock response from the BBC when under criticism (as it often is). Even the wording remains pretty much identical each time it’s expressed by the BBC. (This is understandable considering how many times the BBC faces the accusation of political bias.) So the BBC does indeed sometimes quote the words of the person or group it’s politically against. (Of course the BBC doesn’t explicitly state that it’s against anything or anyone.) Neat. But all that depends on precisely which words the BBC chooses to quote and also how it edits those words. (There have been some outrageous BBC edits of people’s words over the years. And, very recently, we had the blatant and cynical cropping of a photo — see below — featuring a Black Lives Matter supporter brandishing a metre-long weapon.)
So it’s the easiest thing in the world to display political or ideological bias without explicit political editorialising or commentary. The BBC most certainly doesn’t need to indulge in obvious political rhetoric or polemics — at least not in BBC News. That would be suicidal. (Having said that, the BBC’s many leftwing comedians, NewsNight’s Emily Maitlis, etc. are exceptions to this.) It’s also easy to express political bias without resorting to fake facts.
In the end, then, the point is very simple:
The world itself doesn’t tell the BBC which stories to cover and how it should cover them.
Finally, it’s ironic that there’s a case of the BBC “fact-checking” negative claims about…well, the BBC itself. (In this example, where the BBC gets its money from.) And, as with Full Fact earlier, it seems that the corrected facts aren’t false anyway—they’re simply (what the BBC calls) “misleading”. In that strict sense, then, many BBC News articles are also misleading.
An Example of Full Fact’s Biased Wording
Here are a few wording biases from a single Full Fact piece on asylum seekers. (The piece is called ‘Have 12,000 asylum seekers vanished in the UK?’.) Here goes:
“The largest proportion of live asylum cases are rejections.”
The wording here is ambiguous. Many people will conclude from that statement that these rejected asylum seekers will be kicked out of the United Kingdom. They won’t. That is, even if the cases of asylum seekers are rejected, many — or even most — don’t end up actually leaving the United Kingdom. Full Fact doesn’t mention — not even once — how many rejected asylum seekers end up actually being kicked out of the UK.
“The Home Office recorded over 77,000 asylum cases as ‘in progress’ between April and June 2016. This is the latest available data. Almost 27,000, or 35%, were “subject to removal action”. That means that the people involved haven’t been granted asylum and are either waiting to leave the UK or there’s a delay in arranging this.”
Firstly, this completely ignores those asylum seekers who “disappear” into the UK. In any case, 50,000 asylum seekers weren’t “subject to removal action”. (We also need to bear in mind the timescale these stats and figures refer to.) And, as stated above, “subject to removal action” doesn’t actually mean that failed asylum seekers are removed from the UK. (The term “removal action” seems like weasel words; though it isn't Full Fact’s own coinage.) What’s more, “waiting to leave the UK” doesn’t actually mean that asylum seekers will leave the UK either. As with “removal action”, the words “waiting to leave the UK” are vague — perhaps deliberately vague. And that “delay in arranging” bogus asylum seekers to leave the UK can be indefinite — and often is!
“The Home Office says that these delays include ‘difficulties in obtaining documents from national governments; dealing with last minute legal challenges; and logistical and practical challenges in removing families in a humane and dignified fashion’.”
All of which leads to the fact that many — or most — bogus asylum seekers don’t actually end up leaving the UK.
“Around 20,000 cases, or 26%, were awaiting the initial outcome of the application. Another 16% had lodged an appeal to their application and were waiting on the outcome.”
I’m not sure what readers are meant to conclude from this. Of those 20,000 asylum seekers, all of them may (it’s not being said that they will) end up obtaining successful applications to stay in the UK. The 16% who’ve appealed may be successful too. Thus 42% of these asylum seekers (according to Full Fact’s own figures) may be successful and end up staying in the UK. Is 42% a lot or not a lot? It may depend on how you word it.
Looked at overall, this Full Fact piece seems to have been specifically designed (because of the wording) to convince people that the situation with asylum seekers isn’t as bad as many people believe. Yet when you read it carefully, the opposite conclusion can just as easily be made — that is, the opposite conclusion based on the very same facts, stats and figures. Apart from how vague many of the terms are, and that the stats alone don’t show us that there isn’t a problem (though that’s the intention of the Full Fact piece), it’s crystal clear that most asylum asylum seekers — bogus or otherwise — end up staying in the UK; whether that’s because of (to use Full Fact’s own words) “logistics”, unsuccessful “removal action” or successful “legal challenges”.
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Notes:
1): I’ve only just come across a really blatant and obvious example of Full Fact being explicitly — rather then implicitly — political. It’s an article on why the National Socialists were not socialists. This piece doesn’t even attempt to concern itself with false stats or facts. It’s purely an ideological take on this issue — dressed up as “fact checking”. As if the issue as to whether or not National Socialists were socialists could be a purely factual matter. That displays either fantastic naivete or crude political deceit by Full Fact. And why is this a fit subject for a fact-checking website anyway?
2): See ‘Faux Facts — The disturbing Truth About fullfact.org’; published by the website UK Column. This takes a very different approach to Full Fact. Here the main subject of discussion is the fact that the owners and many of the writers of Full Fact have been taking political action against “press freedom” (or what many others would call press lies) over the years. It also discusses the politics of this fact-checking website..
Ironically, UK Column has itself been fact-checked by Media Bias/Fact Check in its own highly-political piece about UK Column’s political nature. (This is a perfect example of “the pot calling the kettle black”.) This shows that many fact-checking websites are themselves firmly ensconced in the belligerent parts of our political arena.
