“Fact checking” is a euphemism for editorializing which is a form of censorship. And that’s a fact. — Cameron Winklevoss May 28, 2020
From the follow-on replies to this tweet, it’s clear I wasn’t alone in thinking this was a concept that needed immediate challenging. It might be momentarily intriguing but, like fireworks or a shooting star, it’s not a foundation for anything of any lasting soundness.
Part of what I do is fact-checking, primarily in nonfiction work but also in fiction. Did those floods happen in Thailand or Taiwan? What are the names of banking regulatory entities in France? When did 911 numbers roll out in the United States? All the details in any document are part of the logic of the writing. They’re like the stitches that allow a garment to be worn or the mounts and bolts that hold a vehicle engine in place.
Would we drive a car if everything that held it together was loose or didn’t fit right? Would we even want to be anywhere on the street near one? It isn’t much different from reading something that hasn’t been checked for accuracy.
For me, everything to do with editing is focused on ensuring a reader’s obstacle-free passage through the worlds created by writers. The order of information, structure of sentences, and use of punctuation, in addition to the accuracy of real-world references, are all important. We correct or recommend revisions to these elements because they are the pavement and road signs a reader follows through the text.
I also write and know how startling it can be when an editor points out that something I was certain about actually isn’t accurate or that something I thought was clearly written had, in fact, left the editor completely lost.
When someone corrects or challenges the way we hold, or write, the world around us, it’s like having a street in our neighborhood moved. It makes us feel a little disoriented, perhaps even angry. We might wonder if anything else isn’t what or where we thought it was, and most of us aren’t fond of uncertainty. But if that street was moved because a sinkhole lurked beneath it, it’s safer to reconstruct it on solid ground.
And that’s not editorializing!
You’re almost there 