Why I track every false thing Trump says

WASHINGTON— I started fact-checking Donald Trump because I was frustrated with how his serial lying was being covered.

Here’s what would happen during the 2016 campaign.

Trump would lie. Reporters would point this out on Twitter. And then . . . that would be it. Dedicated fact-checking websites, like PolitiFact, might do a check the next day. The Washington Post had a dedicated fact-checker. But if you got your news from CNN or the New York Times or ABC, you’d never learn that Trump had made 12, 15, 37 false claims in 24 hours.

Trump’s endless dishonesty was being treated as either a nonstory or a sideshow. I thought it was the show — a central feature of his candidacy — and that it should be covered as such.

During debates, newspapers deploy teams of reporters to fact-check. Why should the truth be treated as less important every other day?

I started reading every word Trump said, producing a quickie list of false claims for Twitter. That evolved into a more thorough fact-check on our website.

When Trump won, I knew I’d have to keep going in 2017. Along with the Post, I now do one of the two comprehensive running tallies of Trump’s false claims. I get two questions most frequently. Why do I call it a list of “false claims” rather than a list of lies?

Because, while some of them are obviously lies, some of them may be the result of confusion or ignorance rather than an intentional attempt to deceive.

Why is my tally (1,064 as of Thursday) so much lower than the Post’s (2,001 as of last week)?

We’re counting different things. I stick to false claims. The Post counts “false or misleading” claims. In some cases, the misleading claims are factually accurate.

People sometimes ask what methods I use. Really, it’s basic journalism. Sometimes it involves contacting experts. Sometimes it involves reading old reports or searching online archives.

The sheer frequency of Trump’s dishonesty can make this a relatively tiring desk job. (My Sunday nights are not fun nights.) What’s most striking, though, is how easy a lot of the checking is.

Many of Trump’s lies are obvious the moment he utters them. Others he repeats over and over, so I merely have to copy and paste my previous checks.

Fact-checking Trump is much more a test of endurance than of skill.

The more he repeats himself, the more depressing the task can feel. But I don’t think it’s time to call it a day. As long as the president is lying, it’s the job of the media to hold him accountable to the truth.