You know what erodes the public’s trust? #FakeNews.
You know which side of the political aisle it gets generated on?
Yeah….
I was typing away doing my actual job this afternoon, trying to arrange actual facts in a news story discerning readers might or might not end up drawing some conclusions about when a tweet caught my eye. Sent out by A Better Minnesota, it concerned today’s not-very-surprising, blast-from-the-past entrant into the state’s gubernatorial race, Tim Pawlenty, and K-12 education.
“As #mngov, @TimPawlenty short changed out kids by ‘borrowing’ $2 billion dollars in funding from schools to cover up his $6.2 billion budget deficit, leading to thousands of teacher layoffs,” it said. “We need a gov that values our children’s future. #MeetPawlenty.”
There was a link, and a graphic that said, “Tim Pawlenty laid off thousands of teachers, MinnPost, 8.27.10.”
I finished my actual work before I called my personal archival droid up from the basement to request some intel. Teacher layoffs and ed finance was my MinnPost beat, circa 2010, and I was pretty sure I never typed those words.
I mean, I remember layoffs and I remember lots of things Pawlenty did in his first stint in the governor’s mansion that can fairly be classified as bad for schools. And I remember a recession that was bad for schools, families and pretty much everyone else.
But the tweet as written? No. Continue reading