M. Anthony Mills makes a great point:

In recent decades, journalistic institutions have shifted from preoccupation with ensuring their own credibility in the eyes of the public to concern about the credulousness of the public. In this way, the traditional practice of journalistic fact-checking has effectively been repurposed. Where once fact-checking was for internal quality control, a tool for journalists to police themselves, it has instead become a tool for policing public discourse.

I read the essay a few weeks ago but thought of it again while reading through the Vance-Walz “fact checks” from the media.‘’

Mills’s inspired title: “The Refs Are Working Us.”