Earlier this month, Michael Scherer published an article called "Fact Checking and the False Equivalence Dilemma" on Time's Swampland blog. Scherer wrote the article in response to criticism of a cover story he wrote about the "factual deceptions" of Barry Obama and Willard Romney. Some readers accused him of false centrism.
Scherer's defense is that we cannot reliably compare the deceptiveness of individuals or groups, especially not based on fact checker rulings. He based his defense on comments by the leaders of the fact checking industry during a press conference that Scherer attended. (In fact, the comments responded to a question that Scherer himself asked.)
Evidenced by my previous post on estimating partisan and centrist bias from fact checker report cards, I sympathize with Scherer's defense against frothy-mouthed partisans who are convinced that the other side tells nothing but a bunch of stuff. Yet I disagree with him and the leaders of the fact checking industry that we cannot reliably compare fact checker rulings (notice I don't say deceptiveness) across politicians and political groups.
To make my point, I'll condense into a list what the fact checking industry leaders and Michael Scherer have said about what Scherer calls the "false equivalence dilemma" (but which should be called the "false comparison dilemma"). For each item in the list, I'll describe the issue, then explain how to deal with it.
(Read more at Malark-O-blog.)