NewsBusters Podcast: ‘Fact Checkers’ Are Not Heroes Like Firefighters! [Video]

CNN media analyst Brian Stelter offered a terrible tweet on Mark Zuckerberg firing his “fact checkers. They were comparing themselves to….firefighters. In the midst of the L.A. wildfires: 

“Cutting fact checkers from social platforms is like disbanding your fire department.” https://t.co/eEcDL8ocr4

— Brian Stelter (@brianstelter) January 13, 2025

It came in a story by Donie O’Sullivan, who is sometimes called “Irish Brian Stelter” at the MRC. This was the headline: “Soon to be out of a job, Meta’s fact-checkers battle a blaze of wildfire conspiracy theories”. But which “fact checkers” are letting their writers go? This only means Meta no longer needs their service, not that all the fact-checkers are unemployed. This was the crazy line: 

“Cutting fact checkers from social platforms is like disbanding your fire department,” said Alan Duke, a former CNN journalist who co-founded the fact-checking outlet Lead Stories, one of dozens of such organizations around the world funded by Meta.

That’s wrong, …