What stood out to me in watching last Sunday’s show, where 60 Minutes journalist Scott Pelley interviews an individual who traffics in “fake” news, is how perfectly plausible he could sound. The more I listened, however, the more I realized I was listening to “fake” plausibility. “ ‘What we are talking about are stories that are fabricated out of thin...

In an unprecedented move, White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer last Friday, barred “journalists from the New York Times, CNN, Politico and BuzzFeed—which have been criticized by President Donald Trump and his administration for their reporting—from [an off-camera press briefing]. Reporters from the Associated Press and Time Magazine boycotted the event in protest,” The Wall Street Journal reported (Feb. 24)....

Since last Friday (Jan. 27), when President Trump signed an executive order banning travel from seven countries for at least the next 90 days, this website has received a higher than usual response rate, largely due to a commentary I wrote last year. (Comments to this post are now closed.) Fact-Checking a Reader (Jan. 20, 2016), was written in response...

Last week, President-elect Donald Trump held his first press conference since being elected. While the meeting was supposed to allow Mr. Trump to lay out his proposal on how he will unravel himself from his many conflict of interest issues, the conversation quickly turned to an intelligence briefing for Mr. Trump – specifically a 2-page synopsis of a 35-page report...

Gerard Baker is The Wall Street Journal’s editor in chief. You have a strangely nuanced view of what is or is not a lie when it comes to the utterances and tweets of President-elect Trump. Here’s what you said (Trump, ‘Lies’ and Honest Journalism): “[A] ‘Lie’ implies much more than just saying something that’s false. It implies a deliberate intent...

“Journalists should accept moral responsibility for the foreseeable consequences of actions and inactions, including the example set for others and when in error, they should make full, fair, prominent and prompt corrections.”   – Michael Josephson, Ethical Principles of Journalism The New York Times, Wall Street Journal and other news organizations offer readers the opportunity to “correct the record” regarding errors...

John Zogby is a pollster and author who has the ability to write analysis in a way most of us can understand. Recently, John sent me the following political conundrum: In the election of 2016, the candidates for President are: Republican, The Emperor Nero of Rome, narcissistic, extravagant, and tyrannical. He felt the burn almost 2000 years ago. Democrat, Catherine...

“I won’t insult your intelligence by suggesting that you really believe what you just said.”  — William F. Buckley, Jr. In Junior High, my mother announced that every day I would start reading at least two articles from our daily newspaper. The first was a news event of the day. Typically, I’d pick anything to do with the space program....

The publication of Colin Powell’s private opinions of both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump – obtained from hacked e-mails from the former secretary of state’s private e-mail account – is only the latest example of the thorny ethical issues that journalists and media organizations must navigate. In this new universe, everything that’s been hacked appears to be fair game after...

October 2, 2015: a date… which will live… in infamy; at least for one journalist. That look of utter defeat on Washington Post Columnist Dana Milbank’s face comes as a consequence of a promise he made last year. “I’m so certain Trump won’t win the nomination,” Milbank wrote, “that I’ll eat my words if he does. Literally: The day Trump...