Fact-checking, a new study suggests, can be an effective club to bat down political lies. Who knew?
Experimenting on 1100 legislators in nine states, political scientists at the New America Foundation found fewer subsequent fibs by those who were warned about the existence of PolitiFact, which checks on their veracity: “Politicians who lie put their reputations and careers at risk.”
The study’s authors conclude that “the letter was an effective reminder of the potential costs of a negative rating.”
If candidates take this finding seriously, it will bolster anecdotal evidence that truth squads following them and their opponents can be an effective deterrent to bald-faced campaign lies.
In the old days, the media used to serve this function, but that was before most so-called reporters morphed into stenographers.
This study makes a suggestive bookend for another showing that Americans, particularly younger ones, lag behind their counterparts in most developed countries, not only “in math and technology, but also in literacy.”
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