Liar, liar, pants on fire

Politifact won the news cycle today with their cockamamie choice for Politifact Lie of the Year. They seemed to enjoying the mass condemnation from all corners of the reality based community. I'm pretty sure they were slapping each other on the back at Politfact HQ, assuring each other they must be doing something right since so many people were pissed at them. And look at that traffic spike, would you?

Likewise, the twitter machine was humming with lie of the year analogies and snarky hashtags. I saw a whole lot of laments about the sad demise of Politfact's credibility. And I asked myself, "Where have these people been for the last 12 months?"

I've seen this happen, time and time again. Like so many well intentioned enterprises before them, Polifact started out as a kickass project that did good work. Their unvarnished honesty was refreshing. They built a following. A big following. Eventually they got so big, building the brand became bigger than the mission.

From where I sit, Politfact was co-opted a long time ago. Think they started losing their mojo shortly after they won that Pulitzer Prize. I mean, am I really the only one who noticed the increasingly tepid exposures of right wing perfidy and strained reaches to condemn "the other side" too? To borrow from Charles, it appears they have been infected with a terminal case of gutless pissantery. All too often the price of success in what passes for professional journalism today. Sad.

[More posts daily at the Detroit News.]