Is @HillaryClinton right about charters? No. Fact checkers say “not supported by evidence.” https://t.co/VBbOUL2jOY
— Greg Richmond (@GregRichmond) November 15, 2015
It seemed to take a while for mainstream news outlets to catch up to the charter school critique issued by Hillary Clinton a week or so ago, but advocates and then editorial pages pummeled her broad-brush comments all last week and through the weekend.
On Thursday Factcheck.org took issue with it as well:
“We take no position on the merits of charter schools. But we find that Clinton’s broad claim that “most charter schools” don’t accept or don’t keep the hardest-to-teach kids is not supported by the evidence.”
Fact-checking is a tough thing for newsrooms to do on the fly, but is something that is possible to do when claims are questioned. In a perfect world, claims made by candidates or advocates would be questioned and verified as they are being reported — not just by quoting reactions from opponents. At least in this situation an attempt was made to look into them after the fact.
Related posts: Trying To Understand Coverage Of Clinton’s Charter School Critique; Transparency On Fact-Checking Might Shed Light On Controversial NYT Oped.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Alexander Russo
Alexander Russo is founder and editor of The Grade, an award-winning effort to help improve media coverage of education issues. He’s also a Spencer Education Journalism Fellowship winner and a book author. You can reach him at @alexanderrusso.
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