fact check mania

many years ago, let's say four, my friend Steven's then-girlfriend bought him a domain name registration for his birthday. Steven was a magazine fact checker, and very up on the idea of fact checking becoming both popular and lucrative, and thought he might assemble a freelance network of crack researchers for hire, some text about why fact checking is so crucial, and have himself a dot-com phenom. It was factcheck.com.

It took Jayson Blair and war-related mea culpas from everyone from the Washington Post to Bill O'Reilly, but now little fact checking sidebars, segments, and pundits are all over the media, including the ubiquitous guy from factcheck.org.

Last night, during the VP debate, Cheney, hoping to refer viewers to an article on factcheck.org that said he hadn't benefited financially from the Halliburton handout, instead directed people to factcheck.com. (via Political Animal)

I hope Steven hung onto the property and made millions.