Sarasota Herald-Tribune
Buchanan uses ‘fairness’ quote unfairly
Congressman Vern Buchanan used his franking privileges recently to populate his constituents’ email inboxes with the ironically misleading claim that NBC’s Lester Holt told other journalists, “Fairness is overrated.”
Buchanan, R-Longboat Key, relied on a misstated headline from the famously biased Fox News. The problem is Holt's comments were taken seriously out of context and, when presented in their entirety, make perfect sense to those responsible for reporting the news in the truth-challenged environment we live in.
A quick search on the fact-checking website http://Snopes.com provides the correct context.
Snopes reports: “In Holt's ‘fairness is overrated’ remark, context showed that he was referencing the rising dangers of misinformation online, and that always giving equal weight to two sides of an issue can be dangerous if those sides aren't rooted in facts.