Fire and Fury: Inside Fact Checking Books

Original Air Date: January 20, 2018
Fire and Fury: Inside Fact Checking Books

In this episode Beth and Kelly dive into a good question... are books fact checked?  And if so, by who?  And if not.... why not?
Noooooooooo.... not books!  Books can't be fake news too!  We love books!  There are two kinds of people in the world.  Those who love books and... those other people.  We don't talk to them much, there isn't much to say past "How's the weather"?  because those people don't love books.  The weight, the feel, the smell... a library on a rainy Saturday.  You can't take something so sacred and make it fake right?
Well....  there might be something there.  

Song of the episode 

This week we recommend relaxing with Angus and Julia Stone's "Draw Your Swords".  We like to think it's like writers clashing over truth and fake news.  It's probably about love though.  Whichever, it's a hauntingly beautiful song, and one you can listen to after reading a good book.

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Kelly also recommended a book for the episode - except it's more of the book the episode is about.  Kelly read "Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House" by Michael Wolff because we had some questions.  Mainly - is this book fake news?
And - now that we are thinking about it - can books be fake news? 
We found some surprising answers to this question.  Take a listen and find out if publishers fact check books, who pays for fact checking, and if this has been an ongoing scandal in the book industry with no end in sight. 

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Resources used: 
7 Books That Lied to You- Barnes and Nobles Blog
Book Publishing, Not Fact-Checking - The Atlantic
Gay Talese Isn't Alone: Why Aren't More Books Factchecked? - The Daily Beast

Kelly's next cross stitch project

Resources for Fire and Fury:
A fact-checker's guide to Michael Wolff's 'Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House'- Politifact
How should the media cover Donald Trump? - USA Today
'It's all explosive': Michael Wolff on Donald Trump - The Guardian

And now for some fun!  We deserve some fun now that we have to fact check authors, and books, and publishers.  Uggggggg.

Is This Kim Jong-Un Reading 'Fire and Fury'?​Snopes has debunked this satire photo of Kim Jong-Un reading Fire and Fury.  Of course it's photoshopped, but on point as well. as the whole Fire and Fury tweet was directed at Kim Jong-Un to begin with. 

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Another one making the rounds is:
Did Mitch McConnell Blow Off President Trump to Get a Haircut?
Outcome: Unproven
Snopes looked into this claim from the book,  McConnell's camp has denied it, but we have a theory.  It involves the fact that it's hard for turtles to get a hair cut, so....

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​And don't forget - Spread jam, not lies.