The furor over Jimmy Kimmel’s suspension exposed PolitiFact once again as a very partisan outfit – not an “independent fact-checker.”
They offered no fact check for Kimmel’s nationally broadcast lie: “We hit some new lows over the weekend with the MAGA gang desperately trying to characterize this kid who murdered Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them, and doing everything they can to score political points from it.”
Instead, they threw a “False” rating on Thursday at….Sean Hannity.
“I can’t find a single, prominent conservative voice in the country that even remotely wanted or hoped or was pushing to get Jimmy Kimmel taken off the air,” Hannity said Sept. 17 on his show Hannity. “Nobody — it just was simple. People changed the channel. They didn’t watch him. Not one person can I think of. Maybe there’s one, but I can’t think of him.”
It should seem plain that Hannity was talking about this week, after Kimmel’s lying comment. But PolitiFact’s Madison Czopek stuck with her website’s persistent loathing of President Trump:
At least one major conservative advocated for the demise of Kimmel’s show in recent months: Trump. And he did so repeatedly.
What would you call this tactic? You ignore the original lie from the liberal, and then tag the conservative responder as the liar? Czopek shamelessly quoted Kimmel’s lie — without ever identifying it as false.
The “fact checker” had to fuzz over the facts, including Robinson’s motive: “Suspect Tyler Robinson was charged the day after Kimmel’s comments. Robinson was an unaffiliated inactive voter who prosecutors said described Kirk as someone who ‘spreads too much hate.’”
In a separate article, PolitiFact’s Louis Jacobson and Samantha Putterman reviewed the FCC, and not Kimmel. The duo suggested Kimmel should be held to a lower standard, since his show is entertainment, not news. But then it got worse:
In addition, it’s complicated to argue that Kimmel was knowingly sharing inaccurate information. At the time of his monologue, some news reports had discussed the relationship of the alleged shooter, Tyler Robinson, to a gender-transitioning roommate, but the charging documents had not yet been released.
“I don’t receive Kimmel’s comments as a falsehood in the same way that a deceptive statement about a cryptocurrency or misdirection about a polling place is,” [Fordham University law professor Olivier] Sylvain said. “Nor can we say that Kimmel, an entertainer, was advancing anything other than an opinion.”
