The Media Discovers "Fact-Checking"

By now you may have heard of the recent little dust-up on CNN between The Beard and Michael Moore, over the state of U.S. Healthcare and the movie "Sicko".

What I find interesting, and Atrios noticed it, too, was the fact that the media has all of a sudden formed an interest in something called "fact-checking".

What's puzzling, though, is that the subject of their "fact-checking" is a film-maker and not, say, somebody who actually makes public policy.

Why do you think that might be?