In the Bible, Pontius Pilate asks Jesus, "What is truth?" And for centuries philosophers, theologians and a host of others have wrestled with what appears to be one question, but is actually two. One question deals with the nature of truth itself, and the other asks if a given statement is actually true. Here's more from MTSU Professor of Journalism Dr. Larry Burris...

VERBATIM:

For our purposes, we want to deal with a group of people called 'fact checkers." People whose job it is to verify truth before publication.

In most major, reputable publications, a fact checker will confirm statements made by the author. You write in an article Murfreesboro is the geographic center of the state. A fact checker will probably call the State Historical Commission to verify the statement.

There are also number of independent fact checking web sites that parse all of the statements made by political candidates and rate them on various scales designed to quantify truth or falsity.

Then there are the fact checkers, and here I use the term loosely, working for each of the political parties.

Have you ever noticed partisan fact checkers spin each of their opponents' statements in the most negative light? The candidate makes a statement, the opposition finds facts to prove the statements wrong, then the original party explains why the opposition fact checkers are wrong.

You know what I would like to see, just once: I'd like to see an opposition party say they thought the other side was wrong, but that they were wrong, and the opposition was right.

But since that isn't going to happen, it tells me both sides are spinning the facts to make their own side look good. In other words, neither side is interested in the truth. They are only interested in making the other side look bad. Which isn't good for the democracy at all.