Speeding up the factcheck cycle

At the Republican National Convention, vice presidential nominee Paul Ryan gave a speech that was eloquent, exciting, and riddled with misleading statements. Ryan criticized President Obama for failing to save an auto plant in Ryan’s hometown of Janesville (WI) — even though the plant closed before Obama took office. He noted that Obamacare cuts Medicare spending — cuts that Ryan himself included in his own budget proposal. He blamed Obama for not heeding the recommendations of the Simpson-Bowles debt commission — but didn’t mention that, as a member of that commission, Ryan himself opposed its final report. And he faulted Obama for the downgrade of America’s credit — while eliding the fact that the ratings agency that issued the downgrade cited the debt ceiling standoff precipitated by Republicans as the reason.

As Ryan spoke, Twitter erupted with real-time outrage and refutations of his claims. But, as Brendan Nyhan noted here at CJR, even after a strong run of political factchecking, “the morning-after coverage of Ryan’s speech in the mainstream media [was] largely an example of what not to do.” If mainstream outlets are willing and able to publish factcheck material in their blogs and columns in short order, and in second-day pieces in the main report, why wasn’t it more prominent in the initial news articles on the speech?