Simple fixes, and what makes them so hard

Jay Rosen offers a "Simple Fix for the Messed Up Sunday Shows":

I propose this modest little fix, first floated on Twitter in a post I sent out to Betsy Fischer, Executive Producer of Meet the Press, who never replies to anything I say.  "Sadly, you're a one-way medium," I said to Fischer, "but here's an idea for ya: Fact check what your guests say on Sunday and run it online Wednesday."

Now I don't contend this would solve the problem of the Sunday shows, which is structural.  But it might change the dynamic a little bit.  Whoever was bullshitting us more could expect to hear about it from Meet the Press staff on Wednesday.  The midweek fact check (in the spirit of Politifact.com, which could even be hired for the job) might, over time, exert some influence on the speakers on Sunday. At the very least, it would guide the producers in their decisions about whom to invite back.

The midweek fact check would also give David Gregory a way out of his puppy game of gotcha. Instead of telling David Axelrod that his boss promised to change the tone in Washington so why aren't there any Republican votes for health care? ... which he thinks is getting "tough" with a Meet the Press guest, Gregory's job would simply be to ask the sort of questions, the answers to which could be fact checked later in the week. Easy, right?

I certainly don't disagree with Rosen that the Sunday Shows -- along with much of the media's coverage of politics and policy -- are badly broken and need fixes, simple or otherwise.

But Rosen's suggestion that the shows should fact-check what their guests say three full days later is an incredibly modest one -- which just shows how lousy the shows are now.  

Three days is an eternity in modern news cycles.  By then, false claims have often taken hold and driven the week's debate, seeping into the public consciousness.  

Just as important as the fact that three days is too long to wait is the fact that it should be completely unnecessary to do so.  Politicians rarely invent new false claims mid-interview; if the Sunday Show hosts (and everyone else who interviews political figures) just did their homework ahead of time, they would know what their guests are likely to say, and could do their fact-checks ahead of time.  Then, when a guest lies, they'd be in position to say "that isn't true, and here's why."

It really isn't as difficult as it may sound.  If, for example, you interviewed a conservative Senator like Joe Lieberman or John McCain at any point over the past few months and asked them about including the public option in health care reform, you could be pretty sure going in that they would say it would increase the deficit (or something similar.)  And, if you've been doing your job at all, you would know that according to the Congressional Budget Office, that is false.  This isn't rocket science; politicians aren't giving you formulas for cold fusion that you have to assess the validity of in a matter of seconds.  The host chooses the topics, and the guest generally says things the guest (or other members of his or her political party) have said before.  

So it isn't difficult.  All it requires is for the media to care as much about their viewers not being misled as the politicians care about misleading them. 

But that's the problem: the media simply doesn't care that much.  And there's certainly no reason to think that if they did start fact-checking guests "it would guide the producers in their decisions about whom to invite back."  When was the last time the media shunned a politician who regularly misinforms?

Anyway, none of this is really a disagreement with Rosen.  He's right: the Sunday Shows area mess.  And he's right: there some fixes that should be simple to implement.  But they require convincing reporters that a key part of their job is to make sure their viewers (and readers) aren't mislead by dishonest politicians.  That part isn't so simple.