Rule No. 1 in journalism: Check the facts. With politicians, multiply that rule by 10 to 1,000, depending on the politician.

On Day 2 of the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia, former U.S. President Bill Clinton gave a speech about his wife, Hillary Clinton, soon after she was pronounced the official Democratic Party nominee. The speech was glowing and filled with inaccuracies.

Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR) co-founder Jeff Cohen spoke with Truthdig columnist Sonali Kolhatkar about how the media failed to dissect Clinton’s speech.

“Every time he talked about policy, it was either inaccurate — 180 degrees wrong — or it was completely cherry-picked,” said Cohen. “He made it seem like, you’ll remember how Hillary Clinton made climate change the central feature of our foreign policy. That’s virtually word for word. ‘When Hillary was secretary of state, she made,’ well, everyone knows, you can read it in Mother Jones, that she was pushing fracking and U.S. fracking interests all over the world. You cannot simultaneously push fracking all over the world and be making climate change a centerpiece of your foreign policy.”

See the whole interview below:

Watch Bill Clinton’s full speech here.

See all of Kolhatkar’s video series for Truthdig and Free Speech TV from the Democratic National Convention here.

—Posted by Eric Ortiz

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