If anyone has followed me for any amount of time, then it is known that I am constantly telling people to fact check, or as I am more likely to say, "check your shit."
One thing I have to make clear, though, is that you cannot just rely on fact-checking organizations. Sometimes you have to fact check the fact checkers.
Anyone remember Josh Mandel?
He was a Republican running for Senate (again) in 2022 when this image popped up on a campaign video:
It's blurry and low resolution, but many people thought it looked like his face was photoshopped onto a black service member.
If you search today, all the fact checking websites say that claim is false. They actually say it is unproven, and therefore rated false.
But, if you did deeper you find more inconsistencies. Mandel's campaign said a darkening filter was used on the original image which somehow explains the dark hands but no darkening of his face, and they provided a digital image of the original printed picture:
Natalie Allison, a reporter at Politico who reported on the story, shared this picture and the campaign's dark filter explanation.
And she was kind of defensive about it.
But, look at that "original" image. Specifically the boots and the name tags (and we'll ignore Mandel's ridiculously small cover).
Here are the boots in question:
Notice how the boots of the men in back somehow ended up in front of the picture? Almost like it wasn't layered right in Photoshop.
As for the name tags, it is expressed best by this tweet:
If you blow up the image you can see the blurs where names should be.
So obviously the image was altered in various ways. Whether or not Mandel was himself added to the picture isn't clear, but tampering did take place.
But none of the fact-checking sites I looked at mentioned these alterations. Which is shoddy-ass fact checking.
Maybe they thought it didn't matter? Like Natalie Allison said, "Is the argument that you think he didn't actually serve with Marines who were black? It really doesn't make a lot of sense."
No, Ms. Allison. Whether or not he served with black Marines is not the point. The question that deserved to be followed up on is why he was using an altered picture in his campaign ad.
This reporter and the various fact checkers were negligent in following up on these inconsistancies, because, at least in Ms. Allison's opinion, it just didn't matter.
Which is ironic considering the header of Allison's Twitter profile.
"Falsehood flies, and truth comes limping after it."
Words she should consider a little more closely.
