Book Publishing, Not Fact-Checking - The Atlantic

"A lot of readers have the perception that when something arrives as a book, it's gone through a more rigorous fact-checking process than a magazine or a newspaper or a website, and that's simply not that case," Silverman said. He attributes this in part to the physical nature of a book: Its ink and weight imbue it with a sense of significance unlike that of other mediums. Fact-checking dates back to the founding of Time in 1923, and has a strong tradition at places like Mother Jones and The New Yorker. (The Atlantic checks every article in print.) But it's becoming less and less common even in the magazine world. Silverman suggests this is in part due to the Internet and the drive for quick content production. "Fact-checkers don't increase content production," he said. "Arguably, they slow it."