The big new trend of the current election campaign is the rise of the self-appointed fact checker. It seems that trust in politicians has fallen so low that we’d rather get a second opinion from, ahem, a journalist. Channel 4 have made the biggest splash so far with their FactCheck* service, BBC online catches up with Election fact check* , while the pages of the Guardian are graced with ‘Truthwatch’.
But who will check the fact checkers? Could it be a job for the blogosphere? Why, I guess it could. So, first up on the dissecting table is today’s TruthWatch* from the Guardian.
This features an investigation into the utterances of Tory education spokesman Tim Collins and in particular his claim that “what works in the teaching of reading is the proven, traditional method of phonics." Could this possibly be true?
Truthwatch refers to “a much-publicised study in Clackmannanshire in Scotland, which shows that synthetic phonics had a dramatic effect on literacy. The study of 300 children put them more than three years ahead in reading and almost two years ahead in spelling at the age of the 11.”
But then comes the shocking revelation that the Tories had somehow neglected to mention that “although the Clackmannanshire children were 3 years ahead on word recognition at 11, they were only three months ahead on comprehension.”
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