Does the media have a double standard on Hillary Clinton’s and Donald Trump’s embellishments?

[Commentary] Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton are fighting about Clinton's assertion that videos of Trump are being used to recruit Islamic State terrorists. Trump wants an apology for what Clinton said during Dec 19’s Democratic debate; Clinton’s campaign says “Hell, no.” And that’s an actual quote. But there’s also a wrestling match in the media over whether Clinton’s claim is completely false, just slightly off-base, or even right on the money.

Many fact-checkers, including ours, have taken Clinton to task for saying that the Islamic State is “going to people, showing videos of Donald Trump insulting Islam and Muslims in order to recruit more radical jihadists.” So far, there is no evidence that Islamic State recruiters are using video of Trump’s anti-Muslim remarks — a finding conservative media outlets have trumpeted as proof that Clinton lied. Some have gleefully cited a recruiting video that features images not of Trump but of Presidents Barack Obama, George W. Bush and Bill Clinton. So why is Clinton avoiding the same kind of treatment as Trump, whose frequent misstatements earned him Politifact's "Lie of the Year" this week? One is the sheer number of Trump's false statements. But the other key difference is that Clinton’s general idea — the Islamic State is exploiting Trump’s divisive rhetoric — does hold up; she just got the medium wrong.