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An example of why you should fact check.

 


ocalhoun
Wall Street Journal
August 25, 2009
Pg. 15

wall street journal wrote:
Advocates of missile defense are seriously concerned that this is just the beginning, and that the Obama administration seeks to kill the system with a thousand cuts. During the presidential campaign last year, Barack Obama promised to strip $10 billion from the Pentagon's budget for missile defense. (Actually, the U.S. currently spends only $9 billion in this area.)

Sounds like pretty harsh criticism, yes? Obviously making promises that he can't keep, right?

Well, let's fact check.

After extensive searching, I can find no evidence of Obama promising to 'strip $10 billion from missile defense'.

I did, however, find an explanation of where that misinformation might have come from:

Quote:

I believe Berman and May mined the nugget from this 2007 campaign video, where Obama said (at 0:22) "I will cut tens of billions of dollars in wasteful spending [verbal pause aka comma or period] I will cut investments in unproven missile defense systems [verbal pause aka comma or period] I will not weaponize space…" etc. etc.


Yes, that's the wall street journal publishing things that I, a simple amateur, can disprove in minutes...

Everybody here knows I dislike Obama's policies... But I dislike the media even more.
Insanity
A lot of them make mistakes... you can't always jump to the conclusion that they're trying to skew facts in one way or another. I know a lot of TV hosts and shows (O'Reilly Factor comes to mind) try to do that exact thing, but I think it's less of an issue with printed journalism.
deanhills
ocalhoun wrote:
Wall Street Journal
August 25, 2009
Pg. 15

wall street journal wrote:
Advocates of missile defense are seriously concerned that this is just the beginning, and that the Obama administration seeks to kill the system with a thousand cuts. During the presidential campaign last year, Barack Obama promised to strip $10 billion from the Pentagon's budget for missile defense. (Actually, the U.S. currently spends only $9 billion in this area.)

Sounds like pretty harsh criticism, yes? Obviously making promises that he can't keep, right?

Well, let's fact check.

After extensive searching, I can find no evidence of Obama promising to 'strip $10 billion from missile defense'.

I did, however, find an explanation of where that misinformation might have come from:

Quote:

I believe Berman and May mined the nugget from this 2007 campaign video, where Obama said (at 0:22) "I will cut tens of billions of dollars in wasteful spending [verbal pause aka comma or period] I will cut investments in unproven missile defense systems [verbal pause aka comma or period] I will not weaponize space…" etc. etc.


Yes, that's the wall street journal publishing things that I, a simple amateur, can disprove in minutes...

Everybody here knows I dislike Obama's policies... But I dislike the media even more.
Maybe someone needs to write to the Wall Street Journal to verify the source of the statement. I would want to hear their side of the story first, before I judge them. When I googled it, there was no one who challenged the Wall Street news article along your lines. It could be he made the statement during a presentation with a smaller audience?
paul_indo
I think they should have mentioned in the article when and where he said that.
ocalhoun
paul_indo wrote:
I think they should have mentioned in the article when and where he said that.

Especially if it is that compromising and it was in a 'presentation with a smaller audience'.
deanhills
ocalhoun wrote:
paul_indo wrote:
I think they should have mentioned in the article when and where he said that.

Especially if it is that compromising and it was in a 'presentation with a smaller audience'.
In retrospect I agree. That was shoddy journalism. Articles have to give all the w's, where, when, how etc. and quote sources.
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