Fact check: Did USA Today really fact-check satirical newspaper The Babylon Bee and issue a rating of “SATIRE” for a satirical article that claimed “Ninth Circuit Court Overturns Death Of Ruth Bader Ginsburg”?
The Sacramento Brie put its best fact-checking team on the case. We spent 17 exhausting seconds scanning to the end of the 1,000-word article to reach our conclusion.
“We intentionally ignored 99% of the article because the headline said it was fact-checking a satirical article,” said Sacramento Brie editor Huey P. Newsom.
“We rate this claim SATIRE, based on our research,” wrote USA Today Fact Check Reporter Chelsey Cox, who also provided 15 “fact-check sources” including USA Today, the American Law Institute, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, the White House, Encyclopedia.com, and the UCLA School of Law.
Sacramento Brie Ruling: Yes, USA Today really did fact-check a satirical article and declare it “satire.”
(blinks slowly)
They fact-checked… The Bee…
Thanks for checking that. Otherwise I would have thought that was an article from the Onion.
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…from which we conclude that 1) most fact-checking is not fact-checking; and 2) the public schools have failed.
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Wait, their fact checker was able to establish that a satirical article was indeed satirical. This seems a step up for fact checking, in fact I’m not sure fact checking typically attains such rarified heights. And 15 sources! Is there a perhaps Nobel or Pulitzer or something in the air?
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The Pulitzer should be more like Lord Stanley’s Cup, passed around the league and lovingly caressed, each reporter’s name engraved as on a bedpost.
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