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Harper responded that Canada fared fare better than other nations and asked, also rhetorically: “Over the last 10 years … where would you rather have been than Canada?’”

When politicians spout untruths shamelessly and voluminously, it’s insufficient to simply report both sides

There was much with which to quibble. Empirical facts didn’t bear up much of Trudeau’s economic narrative. And was it fair for him to blame Harper for the downturn? As for Harper, if economic rebound was your sole criteria it was debatable whether Canada had indeed been the best place in the world to live for the previous decade.

Most reporting on the debate, however, simply presented both sides, pitting the politicians’ claims against each other and letting the reader decide. In the upcoming campaign, comparable reports will be more likely to try to correct talking points like these on the fly.

The ascendency of Donald Trump in Washington, and of the Ford Brothers in Ontario — Premier Doug Ford and his late brother Rob, who was mayor of Toronto for four tumultuous years — have seen more and more reporters fact-checking their subjects in their daily files.

“Bothsidesism” doesn’t work anymore, the theory goes: When politicians spout untruths shamelessly and voluminously, it’s insufficient to simply report both sides, relying on another politician or expert to inform the reader. Instead, when a statement is demonstrably false, reporters should say so up front and show their work. With a federal election just weeks away, media consumers can expect to see far more specific exploration of politicians’ claims than they did four years ago — and ideally, they will end up better informed. But when journalistic fact-checking happens centre-stage, as opposed to behind the scenes, reporters sometimes reveal more about themselves than they do about the facts they’re checking. Done badly, fact-checking can actually exacerbate the partisan, misinformation-riddled mess it’s designed to cut through.