If your fact check consists of “this is true, but” you are no longer checking a fact

A great line from When media fact-checkers finally jumped the shark by Larry O'Connor.

Another Washington Post fact check from the president’s speech as an example. “266,000 aliens arrested in the past two years: The number is right but misleading” was the Post’s headline.

That’s the problem in a nutshell. If your fact check consists of “this is true, but” you are no longer checking a fact. You are engaged in an argument, and therefore, you’re guilty of misleading your readers — which, we thought, was the opposite of your job description.

See my post Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? - Fact checking the fact checkers but many others as well. If you are fact checking opinions or forecasts, if your assessment of validity hinges on interpretation of context or on undue precision, or on possible but improbable counterfactuals - You aren't fact-checking, you are make an argument or stating an opinion. What a quagmire.