At Politico, Michael Calderone has some fun at the expense of CNN, which took the time to fact-check this week’s opening SNL skit chiding President Obama. “Perhaps it’s worth retroactively fact-checking if Gerald Ford actually fell down as many times as Chevy Chase did,” Calderone writes.
Point taken. Another striking thing about the CNN segment, though, was that the network felt the need to call on the editor of Politifact to do the fact-checking. That St. Pete Times project is an admirable undertaking, and has built a name for itself as an arbiter of truth. But does CNN not think it has enough authority, on its own, to fact-check a comedy skit?
Greg Marx is an associate editor at CJR. Follow him on Twitter @gregamarx.