From WNYC in New York, this is On the Media. I'm Bob Garfield.

And I'm Brooke Gladstone. Just three more weeks. A month ago, the polls pointed strongly towards a comfortable Obama victory. Now no one really knows what the heck is going on.

The campaigns and super PACs are emptying their coffers,

snapping up last-ditch TV advertising time and swing states for better and frequently for worse.

In a recent op-ed, Kathleen Hall-Jamison of the Annenberg Public Policy Center in fact-check.org

noted that about a quarter of third-party ads, you know, from PACs and super PACs, in the last six months contained at least one false claim.

Considering the volume of ads, that's a lot of lies. The only thing between the beleaguered residents of Swing States and that wave of mendacity

might just be the valiant efforts of fact-checkers.

But that all depends.

Jameson holds up the TV stations of Denver, capital of Swing State, Colorado, as paragon's

of fact-checking virtue.

They've risen to a daunting challenge.

The state endured 26,000 political ads through September. Jameson praised Denver Station K-USA in particular. Let's hear a clip of

fact-checking done right. In this commercial, we never hear from Joe McClosie, just people with

very bold statements about Congressman

Mike Kaufman. Think you know Mike Kaufman? Maybe it's time for another look. Kaufman voted to end Medicare.

costing me $6,400 more each year. Kaufman did not vote to end Medicare. He's voted to change it. So we'll

label that first statement as false. That plan says in

2022, seniors were... Jameson says that the real power of this particular example of fact-checking

lies not so much in what you hear, but what you see. It's aired in a box on the screen that's

turned at an angle with a clear label that tells you it's an ad,

you are hearing the reporter and you're seeing the ad about to be analyzed.

...