Free Republic

When it comes to improving fact-checking, most of the focus tends to be on how fact checkers select the claims they examine, the sources they turn to in determining “truth” and the strength of their arguments. While it receives less attention, the editorializing language fact checkers use can be just as harmful to the public’s trust in their work. Browse through the first five pages of FactCheck.org’s Barack Obama archive and fact checks of the former president’s statements are headlined with relatively clinical terms such as “misrepresents,” “misleading” and “cherry-picks.” In contrast, the first five pages of the site’s Donald...