An Observation

An excellent observation, in fact, made my Shaker GoldFishy to me via text earlier today, and shared with his permission:

It is just me or are the news media treating "fact-checking" like a cool new gimmick instead of something they should be doing all the time? Srsly.

He is so, so right. And by couching stories assessing the debate, for example, as "fact-checking," the media is also resisting holding candidates personally accountable for strategic dishonesty. It's an oblique, and passive-aggressive, way of calling out lies, in a way that reinforces the cynical narrative that "all politicians lie, anyway," thus tacitly discouraging the idea we have a right to expect more.