First there was Jake Tapper, interim-host of ABC's This Week, partnering with PolitiFact.com to offer viewers a fact-check of the Sunday morning program.

Now Betsy Rothstein reports on Mediabistro.com's FishbowlDC blog that The New Republic has launched an effort to highlight criticism of itself from both the right and left:

In an act of policing itself, today TNR launches The In-House Critics, a blog that offers regular criticism of itself from the Right and Left.

Editor Franklin Foer explained in a statement that “while disagreement between writers exists in spades on TNR.com, The In-House Critics represents an experiment in formalizing it.”

So they've asked Jim Manzi (“several clicks to our right”) and Michael Kazin (“several to our left”) to “regularly disagree with us-to write short pieces that call us out when they see us making dubious intellectual leaps, and to serve as collegial irritants to our assumptions.”

While I doubt other publications will take TNR's lead it would certainly be refreshing to see others looking at their own work with a critical eye. I'm not holding my breath though. Remember, none of Tapper's rivals have followed his example. In fact, two of them have said people watching at home can fact-check on their own time.