Fact: I began my career in journalism as a fact-checker at a magazine in Los Angeles.
Opinion: My experience with this oft-tedious task unfortunately did little to enhance my affection for “The Lifespan of a Fact,” a literate but stubbornly drama-deficient new play about the bruising contretemps between the author of a magazine article – sorry, “essay,” as he insists on calling it – and the aspiring young journalist assigned to verify all the facts in it.
It’s true that fact-checking, once an unheralded occupation familiar only to those in the magazine world, has recently become more widely known. Thanks to the presence in the White House of a compulsive liar, journalists in all media are now in the business of regularly debunking and reporting on the welter of falsehoods streaming through the cultural conversation.
