Jon Stewart on Fact Checking

In his cut CNN Leaves It There Jon Stewart criticizes the lack of factual support in public discourse. He uses CNN as the main example of anchors and government office holders who constantly throw out arbitrary numbers describing important concerns to the country. The problem is that the facts are left unchecked, and there is no way to verify any of the claims. In some cases, the claims contain a ridiculous amount of ambiguity. To make it even worse, CNN has a habit of ending the debates before they have the proper time to fully develop. Once a controversial point is made that does not align with the CNN's political affiliation, they just "leave it there."

Academic discourse does not suffer from this problem because facts are open for anybody in the audience to check. All claims are cited to a list of sources that are included at the end of the writing. Thus, it is impossible for an unsupported claim to pass on as truth. The integrity of the piece as a whole is reliant on the strength of all sources used in its compilation. The need for citations keeps the writer honest since the audience can check on the reliability of the sources and whether the author purposely altered any information.