Fact check: This is not really a post-fact election

Here in WaPo

So voters want more fact-checking. But is it making any difference? Do people change their minds when faced with a fact check that surprises them, or do they internalize only fact checks that suit their own biases? Our understanding of basic psychology suggests that fact checks are often read with a partisan eye.

Often, but not always. A new working paper by Brendan Nyhan of Dartmouth College and Jason Reifler of Exeter University, who have studied fact-checking extensively, indicates that readers can learn from fact checks. Nyhan and ­Reifler conducted a survey of a representative panel of 1,000 Americans to gauge their general knowledge, party preferences and attitudes toward fact-checking. They then took participants who accepted a follow-up invitation to be studied further and split them into two groups. One half received nine fact checks; the other half was the control group and received placebo content in the form of PR releases. Lo and behold, participants in the “treatment” group scored far better when asked factual questions related to the content they read than those in the control group.