We all know the formidable challenges–technological and cultural–faced by traditional newspapers in a digital age. But it’s more than just the paying-for-content crucible. Metro dailies have downsized, merged and collaborated with electronic counterparts. Some, such as the Tampa Bay Times, have gotten proactive with proprietary features such as PolitiFact.
Now the Times has pushed beyond holding public officials accountable to fact-checking pundits. To that end, it recently debuted PunditFact, actually a partnership of PolitiFact and the Times-owning Poynter Institute. This was as inevitable as it was overdue. Too much of the punditocracy are either clueless online amateurs or partisan hacks and conflict-driven infotainers.
The real test, however, will come when the Times has to call out its own.