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Wikipedia

PolitiFact

January 26, 2023

PolitiFact.com is an American nonprofit project operated by the Poynter Institute in St. Petersburg, Florida, with offices there and in Washington, D.C. It began in 2007 as a project of the Tampa Bay Times (then the St. Petersburg Times), with reporters and editors from the newspaper and its affiliated news media partners reporting on the accuracy of statements made by elected officials, candidates, their staffs, lobbyists, interest groups and others involved in U.S. politics.[1] Its journalists select original statements to evaluate and then publish their findings on the PolitiFact.com website, where each statement receives a "Truth-O-Meter" rating. The ratings range from "True" for statements the journalists deem as accurate to "Pants on Fire" (from the taunt "Liar, liar, pants on fire") for claims the journalists deem as "not accurate and makes a ridiculous claim".

PolitiFact.com
Type of site
fact-checking website
OwnerTampa Bay Times (2007–2018)
Poynter Institute (2018–present)
URLpolitifact.com
CommercialYes
LaunchedAugust 2007; 15 years ago (2007-08)
Current statusActive

PunditFact, a related site that was also created by the Times' editors, is devoted to fact-checking claims made by political pundits.[2] Both PolitiFact and PunditFact were funded primarily by the Tampa Bay Times and ad revenues generated on the website until 2018, and the Times continues to sell ads for the site now that it is part of Poynter Institute for Media Studies, a non-profit organization that also owns the newspaper. PolitiFact increasingly relies on grants from several nonpartisan organizations, and in 2017 launched a membership campaign and began accepting donations from readers.[3]

In addition to political claims, the site monitors the progress elected officials make on their campaign promises, including a "Trump-O-Meter" for President Donald Trump, an "Obameter" for President Barack Obama, and a Biden Promise Tracker for President Joe Biden. PolitiFact.com's local affiliates review promises by elected officials of regional relevance, as evidenced by PolitiFact Tennessee's "Haslam-O-Meter" tracking Tennessee Governor Bill Haslam's efforts[4] and Wisconsin's "Walk-O-Meter" tracking Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker's efforts.[5]

PolitiFact has won the Pulitzer Prize,[6] and has been both praised and criticized by independent observers, conservatives and liberals alike. Both liberal and conservative bias have been alleged at different points, and criticisms have been made that PolitiFact attempts to fact-check statements that cannot be truly "fact-checked".[7][8] A survey of 511 stories from 2010 to 2011 found that statements made by Republicans were almost three times as likely to be labeled as false as those of Democrats.[9] A larger 2016 analysis by the American Press Institute found that PolitiFact was statistically more likely to be critical of Republicans,[10] while a text analysis by the University of Washington in 2018 was "not able to detect any systematic differences in the treatment of Democrats and Republicans in articles by Politifact", but noted that the analysis "cannot determine whether there are partisan biases in Politifact’s judgments about truthfulness nor selection of which statements to examine."[11][12]

History

PolitiFact.com was started in August 2007 by Times Washington Bureau Chief Bill Adair, in conjunction with the Congressional Quarterly.

In January 2010, PolitiFact.com expanded to its second newspaper, the Cox Enterprises-owned Austin American-Statesman in Austin, Texas; the feature, called PolitiFact Texas, covered issues that are relevant to Texas and the Austin area.

In March 2010, the Times and its partner newspaper, The Miami Herald, launched PolitiFact Florida, which focuses on Florida issues. The Times and the Herald share resources on some stories that relate to Florida.

Since then, PolitiFact.com expanded to other papers, such as The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The Providence Journal, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, The Plain Dealer, Richmond Times-Dispatch, the Knoxville News Sentinel and The Oregonian. The Knoxville News Sentinel ended its relationship with PolitiFact.com after 2012.[13]

In 2013, Adair was named Knight Professor of the Practice of Journalism and Public Policy at Duke University, and stepped down as Bureau Chief at the Times and as editor at PolitiFact.com.[14] The Tampa Bay Times' senior reporter, Alex Leary, succeeded Bill Adair as Bureau Chief on July 1, 2013,[14] and Angie Drobnic Holan was appointed editor of PolitiFact in October 2013. Adair remains a PolitiFact.com contributing editor.[15]

In 2014, The Plain Dealer ended its partnership with PolitiFact.com after they reduced their news staff and were unwilling to meet "the required several PolitiFact investigations per week".[16]

The organization was acquired in February 2018 by the Poynter Institute, a non-profit journalism education and news media research center that also owns the Tampa Bay Times.[17][18]

In March 2019, in preparation for the 2020 presidential elections, PolitiFact partnered with Noticias Telemundo for fact-checking of information given to the Spanish language audience.[19] In April 2019 PolitiFact joined forces with Kaiser Health News (KHN), for health-news fact checking.[20] In October 2019 insight was given into PolitiFact's Truth-O-Meter's step-by-step process of assessing an item's truth, as considered true by the Politifact team, revealing confirmed facts and including accreditations.[21]

"Lie of the Year"

Since 2009, PolitiFact.com has declared one political statement from each year to be the "Lie of the Year."

2009

In December 2009, they declared the Lie of the Year to be Sarah Palin's assertion that the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2009 would lead to government "death panels" that dictated which types of patients would receive treatment.[22]

2010

In December 2010, PolitiFact.com dubbed the Lie of the Year to be the contention among some opponents of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act that it represented a "government takeover of healthcare". PolitiFact.com argued that this was not the case, since all health care and insurance would remain in the hands of private companies.[23]

2011

PolitiFact's Lie of the Year for 2011 was a statement by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) that a 2011 budget proposal by Congressman Paul Ryan, entitled The Path to Prosperity and voted for overwhelmingly by Republicans in the House and Senate, meant that "Republicans voted to end Medicare".[24] PolitiFact determined that, though it is true the Republican plan would change Medicare fundamentally by forcing the elderly to use private health plans - the very thing Medicare was intended to substitute for - a radically transformed program could still be termed "Medicare" so it was not technically true that "Republicans voted to end Medicare". PolitiFact had originally labeled nine similar statements as "false" or "pants on fire" since April 2011.[25]

2012

For 2012, PolitiFact chose the claim made by Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney that President Obama "sold Chrysler to Italians who are going to build Jeeps in China" at the cost of American jobs.[26] (The "Italians" in the quote was a reference to Fiat, who had purchased a majority share of Chrysler in 2011 after a U.S. government bailout of Chrysler.)[27] PolitiFact had rated the claim "Pants on Fire" in October.[28] PolitiFact's assessment quoted a Chrysler spokesman who had said, "Jeep has no intention of shifting production of its Jeep models out of North America to China."[26] As of 2016, 96.7 percent of Jeeps sold in the U.S were assembled in the U.S.,[29] with roughly 70 percent North American parts content. (The vehicle with the most North American parts content came in at 75%).[30]

2013

The 2013 Lie of the Year was President Barack Obama's promise that "If you like your health care plan, you can keep it".[31] As evidence, PolitiFact cited analysts' estimate of 4 million cancellation letters sent to American health insurance consumers. PolitiFact also noted that in an online poll, readers overwhelmingly agreed with the selection.[31] This stands in stark contrast to its October 9, 2008 statement that Obama's “description of his plan is accurate, and we rate his statement True.” [32]

2014

PolitiFact's 2014 Lie of the Year was "Exaggerations about Ebola", referring to 16 separate statements made by various commentators and politicians about the Ebola virus being "easy to catch, that illegal immigrants may be carrying the virus across the southern border, that it was all part of a government or corporate conspiracy". These claims were made in the midst of the Ebola virus epidemic in West Africa when four cases were diagnosed in the United States in travelers from West Africa and nurses who treated them. PolitiFact wrote, "The claims – all wrong – distorted the debate about a serious public health issue."[33]

2015

PolitiFact's 2015 Lie of the Year was the "various statements" made by 2016 Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump. Politifact found that 76% of Trump's statements that they reviewed were rated "Mostly False," "False" or "Pants on Fire". Statements that were rated "Pants on Fire" included his assertion that the Mexican government sends "the bad ones over" the border into the United States, and his claim that he saw "thousands and thousands" of people cheering the collapse of the World Trade Center on 9/11.[34]

2016

PolitiFact's 2016 Lie of the Year was "fake news" referring to fabricated news stories including the Pizzagate conspiracy theory.[35]

2017

PolitiFact's 2017 Lie of the Year was Donald Trump's claim that Russian election interference is a "made-up story."[36] The annual poll found 56.36% of the 5080 respondents agreed that Trump's "Pants on Fire" statement deserved the distinction.[37] Raul Labrador's statement that "Nobody dies because they don't have access to health care," and Sean Spicer's statement that "[Trump's audience] was the largest audience to witness an inauguration, period," came in second and third place getting 14.47% and 14.25% of the vote respectively. In its article, PolitiFact points to multiple occasions where Donald Trump stated that Russia had not interfered with the election despite multiple government agencies claiming otherwise.

2018

Politifact's 2018 Lie of the Year was that survivors of the Stoneman Douglas High School shooting were crisis actors. These conspiracy theories were spread on blogs and social media by sources including InfoWars,[38] and targeted students including X González and David Hogg, who became prominent gun control activists in the wake of the shooting and helped organize the March for our Lives.

2019

Politifact's 2019 Lie of the Year was Donald Trump's claim that the anonymous whistleblower who reported possible presidential misconduct got the report of his phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky "almost completely wrong."[39] The whistleblower complaint alleged that President Trump urged President Zelensky to conduct an investigation into Trump's political rival in return for promised military aid.

2020

The 2020 Lie of the Year was misinformation related to the COVID-19 pandemic; specifically, theories that either deny the existence of the disease outright, or claim that the disease is much less deadly than it actually is. In particular, Donald Trump was mentioned as a main supporter of such conspiracy theories.[40]

2021

The 2021 Lie of the Year was lies related to the 2021 United States Capitol attack and its significance.[41]

2022

The 2022 Lie of the Year was Disinformation in the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine being propagated by Vladimir Putin.[42]

Reception

PolitiFact.com was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting in 2009 for "its fact-checking initiative during the 2008 presidential campaign that used probing reporters and the power of the World Wide Web to examine more than 750 political claims, separating rhetoric from truth to enlighten voters".[43]

A Wall Street Journal opinion editorial by Joseph Rago in December 2010 called PolitiFact "part of a larger journalistic trend that seeks to recast all political debates as matters of lies, misinformation and 'facts,' rather than differences of world view or principles".[44]

TV critic James Poniewozik at Time characterized PolitiFact as having the "hard-earned and important position as referee in the mudslinging contest—a 'truth vigilante,' as it were", and "PolitiFact is trying to do the right thing here. And despite the efforts of partisans to work the refs by complaining about various calls they’ve made in the past, they’re generally doing a hard, important thing well. They often do it better than the rest of the political media, and the political press owes them for doing it." Poniewozik also suggested, "they need to improve their rating system, to address the irresponsible, the unprovable, the dubious. Otherwise, they’re doing exactly what they were founded to stop: using language to spread false impressions."[45]

Mark Hemingway of The Weekly Standard criticized all fact-checking projects by news organizations, including PolitiFact, the Associated Press and the Washington Post, writing that they "aren't about checking facts so much as they are about a rearguard action to keep inconvenient truths out of the conversation".[46]

In December 2011, Northeastern University journalism professor Dan Kennedy wrote in The Huffington Post that the problem with fact-checking projects was "there are only a finite number of statements that can be subjected to thumbs-up/thumbs-down fact-checking".[47]

Matt Welch, in the February 2013 issue of Reason magazine, criticized PolitiFact and other media fact-checkers for focusing much more on statements by politicians about their opponents, rather than statements by politicians and government officials about their own policies, thus serving as "a check on the exercise of rhetoric" but not "a check on the exercise of power".[48]

PolitiFact retracted its fact-check about a lab leak as the possible origin of COVID-19. The site had originally stated that the lab leak was a "conspiracy theory that has been debunked since the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic". However, after some scientists said they were "too quick to discount a possible link", the lab leak theory,[49] PolitiFact changed its evaluation of the claim to "unsupported by evidence and in dispute".[50][51]

Allegations of political bias

PolitiFact has drawn allegations of political bias from both left-leaning and right-leaning media outlets.[52][53][54] Overall, right-leaning outlets get more negative results from fact-checkers than those on the left, including at PolitiFact, which some right-wing commentators have interpreted as evidence of bias.[54]

In February 2011, University of Minnesota political science professor Eric Ostermeier analyzed 511 PolitiFact stories issued from January 2010 through January 2011. He found that the number of statements analyzed from Republicans and from Democrats was comparable, but Republicans had been assigned substantially harsher grades, receiving "false" or "pants on fire" more than three times as often as Democrats. The report found that "In total, 74 of the 98 statements by political figures judged 'false' or 'pants on fire' over the last 13 month were given to Republicans, or 76 percent, compared to just 22 statements for Democrats (22 percent)."

Ostermeier observed that PolitiFact was not transparent about how the comments were selected for analysis and raised the possibility that the more negative evaluations of Republican comments might be the result of selection bias, concluding: "The question is not whether PolitiFact will ultimately convert skeptics on the right that they do not have ulterior motives in the selection of what statements are rated, but whether the organization can give a convincing argument that either a) Republicans in fact do lie much more than Democrats, or b) if they do not, that it is immaterial that PolitiFact covers political discourse with a frame that suggests this is the case."[55] In response, PolitiFact editor Bill Adair stated in MinnPost: "[...][W]e're accustomed to hearing strong reactions from people on both ends of the political spectrum. We are a news organization and we choose which facts to check based on news judgment. We check claims that we believe readers are curious about, claims that would prompt them to wonder, 'Is that true?'"[56]

An independent 2013 analysis from the nonpartisan Center for Media and Public Affairs at George Mason University showed results consistent with the findings of the aforementioned 2011 study, concluding that PolitiFact was three times as likely to rank statements from Republicans as “Pants on Fire,” and twice as likely to rank statements from Democrats as “Entirely True.” The disparity in these evaluations came despite roughly equally attention paid to statements made by representatives of the two parties: 50.4 percent for the GOP, versus 47.2 percent for the Democrats, with 2.4 percent attention paid to statements from independents.[57]

Funding

Since 2010, PolitiFact has received funding from:[58]

See also

References

  1. ^ "PolitiFact.com". St. Petersburg Times. from the original on August 15, 2010. Retrieved August 16, 2010.
  2. ^ Adair, Bill. . PolitiFact. Archived from the original on April 18, 2014. Retrieved April 12, 2014.
  3. ^ . PolitiFact. January 12, 2017. Archived from the original on May 29, 2017. Retrieved May 30, 2017.
  4. ^ "Haslam-O-Meter: Tracking the promises of Bill Haslam". PolitiFact Tennessee. from the original on March 22, 2012. Retrieved March 19, 2012.
  5. ^ "Walk-O-Meter: Tracking the promises of Scott Walker". PolitiFact Wisconsin. from the original on July 14, 2015. Retrieved July 14, 2015.
  6. ^ "2009 Pulitzer Prizes". Pulitzer Prizes. Pulitzer Prizes. January 3, 2009. Retrieved January 3, 2009.
  7. ^ Claiming persistent bias, Democratic Party to stop taking PolitiFact's calls March 23, 2016, at the Wayback Machine; Milwaukee Magazine; Erik Gunn; June 14, 2011
  8. ^ PolitiFact RI once again shows right-wing bias December 23, 2015, at the Wayback Machine; Rhode Island Future; Samuel Bell; May 25, 2013
  9. ^ Ostermeier, Eric. "Selection Bias? PolitiFact Rates Republican Statements as False at 3 Times the Rate of Democrats". Smart Politics. University of Minnesota. Retrieved February 10, 2011.
  10. ^ Farnsworth, Stephen. "A Comparative Analysis of the Partisan Targets of Media Fact-checking: Examining President Obama and the 113th Congress" (PDF). American Press Institute. American Press Institute. Retrieved May 3, 2021.
  11. ^ Dallas Card, Lucy H. Lin, and Noah A. Smith. "Politifact Language Audit" (PDF). University of Washington, Department of Computer Science.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  12. ^ "Is PolitiFact biased? This content analysis says no". Poynter. August 10, 2018. Retrieved December 31, 2021.
  13. ^ McElroy, Jack. . Knoxnews.com. The E.W. Scripps Co. Archived from the original on May 25, 2013. Retrieved April 16, 2014.
  14. ^ a b Bill Adair, PolitiFact Editor, Named Knight Professor at Duke April 5, 2017, at the Wayback Machine; April 5, 2013
  15. ^ "New editors named for PolitiFact and PunditFact" Tampa Bay TimesOctober 10, 2013. Angie Drobnic Holan PolitiFact Editor April 2, 2015, at the Wayback Machine Staff bio September 5, 2017, at the Wayback Machine
  16. ^ Diadiun, Ted (January 25, 2014). "Coming: Truth squad reporting without the gimmicks". Cleveland Plain Dealer. Northeast Ohio Media Group LLC. from the original on April 13, 2014. Retrieved April 12, 2014.
  17. ^ "Poynter Expands Fact-Checking Franchise by Acquiring PolitiFact.com". February 12, 2018. from the original on February 13, 2018.
  18. ^ "PolitiFact goes nonprofit, moves to Poynter Institute". PolitiFact. Retrieved August 22, 2018.
  19. ^ "Noticias Telemundo Partners With Poynter's PolitiFact, Begin Prep For 2020 Election". MediaPost. March 22, 2019. Retrieved September 19, 2021.
  20. ^ "PolitiFact announces an exclusive health news fact-checking partnership with Kaiser Health News". Kaiser Family Foundation. April 2, 2019. Retrieved September 21, 2020.
  21. ^ "Fact-checking fact-checkers". The Jerusalem Post. October 23, 2019. Retrieved September 22, 2020.
  22. ^ PolitiFact's Lie of the Year: 'Death panels' December 22, 2009, at the Wayback Machine, Angie Drobnic Holan, PolitiFact.com, December 18, 2009
  23. ^ PolitiFact's Lie of the Year: 'A government takeover of health care' December 19, 2010, at the Wayback Machine, Bill Adair and Angie Drobnic Holan, PolitiFact.com, December 16, 2010
  24. ^ Lie of the Year 2011: 'Republicans voted to end Medicare' August 15, 2017, at the Wayback Machine, PolitiFact.com, December 20, 2011
  25. ^ "Democrats say Republicans voted to end Medicare and charge seniors $12,000". PolitiFact. April 20, 2011. from the original on December 12, 2011. Retrieved December 22, 2011.
  26. ^ a b Holan, Angie Drobnic (December 12, 2012). "Lie of the Year: the Romney campaign's ad on Jeeps made in China". PolitiFact. from the original on December 12, 2012. Retrieved December 12, 2012.
  27. ^ Bunkley, Nick (July 21, 2011). "Government Sells Stake in Chrysler". The New York Times. from the original on November 4, 2014.
  28. ^ "Mitt Romney says Obama's Chrysler deal undermined U.S. workers". PolitiFact. October 29, 2012. from the original on December 8, 2012. Retrieved December 12, 2012.
  29. ^ "Jeep most American-made brand with nearly 97 percent of its vehicles born in the USA". KCTV5 News, Kansas City. June 28, 2016. from the original on September 17, 2016. Retrieved September 7, 2016.
  30. ^ "15 Trucks, SUVs, and Vans With the Most North-American-Made Parts". Motor Trend. February 20, 2015. from the original on September 4, 2016. Retrieved September 7, 2016.
  31. ^ a b Drobnic Holan, Angie (December 12, 2013). "Lie of the Year: 'If you like your health care plan, you can keep it'". PolitiFact.com. from the original on December 13, 2013. Retrieved December 12, 2013.
  32. ^ Roy, Avik (December 27, 2013). "Pants On Fire: PolitiFact Tries To Hide That It Rated 'True' in 2008 Obamacare's 'Keep Your Health Plan' Promise". Forbes. Retrieved January 13, 2019.
  33. ^ Angie Drobnic Holan; Aaron Sharockman (December 15, 2014). "2014 Lie of the Year: Exaggerations about Ebola". PolitiFact. from the original on October 25, 2017.
  34. ^ 2015 Lie of the Year: the campaign misstatements of Donald Trump March 27, 2016, at the Wayback Machine, Angie Drobnic Holan and Linda Qiu PolitiFact.com, December 21, 2015
  35. ^ "PolitiFact's 2016 Lie of the Year: Fake news". from the original on September 4, 2017.
  36. ^ "2017 Lie of the Year: Russian election action is a hoax". politifact.com. from the original on March 21, 2018. Retrieved April 30, 2018.
  37. ^ "2017 Lie of the Year Readers' Poll results". politifact.com. from the original on April 26, 2018. Retrieved April 30, 2018.
  38. ^ Holan, Angie Drobnic; Sherman, Amy (December 11, 2018). "PolitiFact's Lie of the Year: Online smear machine tries to take down Parkland students". politifact.com. Retrieved December 12, 2018.
  39. ^ "Lie of the Year: Trump's claim whistleblower got it wrong". PolitiFact. Retrieved December 19, 2019.
  40. ^ Funke, Daniel; Sanders, Katie (December 16, 2020). "Lie of the Year: Coronavirus downplay and denial". PolitiFact. Retrieved January 15, 2021.
  41. ^ Holan, Angie Drobnic; McCarthy, Bill; Sherman, Amy (December 15, 2021). "The 2021 Lie of the Year: Lies about the Jan. 6 Capitol attack and its significance". PolitiFact. Retrieved May 10, 2022.
  42. ^ Catalanello, Rebecca; Jacobson, Louis (December 13, 2022). "Lie of the Year 2022: Putin's lies to wage war and conceal horror in Ukraine". PolitiFact. Retrieved December 31, 2022.
  43. ^ The 2009 Pulitzer Prize Winners September 19, 2009, at the Wayback Machine Retrieved August 16, 2010.
  44. ^ "PolitiFiction: True 'Lies' about Obamacare". The Wall Street Journal. December 23, 2010. from the original on February 1, 2015. PolitiFact's decree is part of a larger journalistic trend that seeks to recast all political debates as matters of lies, misinformation and 'facts,' rather than differences of world view or principles. ... PolitiFact is run by the St. Petersburg Times and has marketed itself to other news organizations on the pretense of impartiality.
  45. ^ Poniewozik, James (August 8, 2012). "PolitiFact, Harry Reid's Pants, and the Limits of Fact-Checking". Time. from the original on September 11, 2016. But if their rating system—designed, ironically, to abet the truth by making it as easy to spread via catchphrase as a lie—is sending false messages, then they need to improve their rating system, to address the irresponsible, the unprovable, the dubious. Otherwise, they're doing exactly what they were founded to stop: using language to spread false impressions. You can tell them a guy told you that about them.
  46. ^ Hemingway, Mark (December 19, 2011). . The Weekly Standard. Archived from the original on January 5, 2012.
  47. ^ Kennedy, Dan (December 13, 2011). . The Huffington Post. Archived from the original on March 17, 2012.
  48. ^ Welch, Matt (February 2013). "The 'Truth' Hurts: How the fact-checking press gives the president a pass". Reason. from the original on January 20, 2013.
  49. ^ Glenn Kessler (May 25, 2021). "Timeline: How the Wuhan lab-leak theory suddenly became credible". The Washington Post. Retrieved June 4, 2021.
  50. ^ "Archived fact-check: Tucker Carlson guest airs debunked conspiracy theory that COVID-19 was created in a lab". Politifact. May 17, 2021. Retrieved June 4, 2021.
  51. ^ Chait, Jonathan (May 24, 2021). "How the Liberal Media Dismissed the Lab-Leak Theory and Smeared Its Supporters". New York. Retrieved June 4, 2021.
  52. ^ Hudson, John (December 20, 2011). "PolitiFact Just Lost the Left". The Atlantic. Retrieved May 2, 2021.
  53. ^ Marx, Greg (January 5, 2012). "What the Fact-Checkers Get Wrong". Columbia Journalism Review. Retrieved May 2, 2021.
  54. ^ a b Graves, Lucas (June 4, 2013). "What We Can Learn from the Factcheckers' Ratings". Columbia Journalism Review. Retrieved May 6, 2019.
  55. ^ Ostermeier, Eric (February 10, 2011). "Selection Bias? PolitiFact Rates Republican Statements as False at 3 Times the Rate of Democrats". Smart Politics. from the original on August 14, 2017.
  56. ^ Brauer, David (February 15, 2011). "Politifact responds to U researcher's anti-GOP bias claim". MinnPost. from the original on April 2, 2015. Retrieved March 26, 2015.
  57. ^ Davis, Katy (May 28, 2013). "Study: Media Fact-Checker Says Republicans Lie More". The Center for Media and Public Affairs. Retrieved May 2, 2021.
  58. ^ "Who Pays For PolitiFact?". PolitiFact. January 2022. Archived from the original on May 9, 2022. Retrieved December 6, 2022.

External links

  • Official website  

January 26, 2023
politifact, american, nonprofit, project, operated, poynter, institute, petersburg, florida, with, offices, there, washington, began, 2007, project, tampa, times, then, petersburg, times, with, reporters, editors, from, newspaper, affiliated, news, media, part. PolitiFact com is an American nonprofit project operated by the Poynter Institute in St Petersburg Florida with offices there and in Washington D C It began in 2007 as a project of the Tampa Bay Times then the St Petersburg Times with reporters and editors from the newspaper and its affiliated news media partners reporting on the accuracy of statements made by elected officials candidates their staffs lobbyists interest groups and others involved in U S politics 1 Its journalists select original statements to evaluate and then publish their findings on the PolitiFact com website where each statement receives a Truth O Meter rating The ratings range from True for statements the journalists deem as accurate to Pants on Fire from the taunt Liar liar pants on fire for claims the journalists deem as not accurate and makes a ridiculous claim PolitiFact comType of sitefact checking websiteOwnerTampa Bay Times 2007 2018 Poynter Institute 2018 present URLpolitifact comCommercialYesLaunchedAugust 2007 15 years ago 2007 08 Current statusActivePunditFact a related site that was also created by the Times editors is devoted to fact checking claims made by political pundits 2 Both PolitiFact and PunditFact were funded primarily by the Tampa Bay Times and ad revenues generated on the website until 2018 and the Times continues to sell ads for the site now that it is part of Poynter Institute for Media Studies a non profit organization that also owns the newspaper PolitiFact increasingly relies on grants from several nonpartisan organizations and in 2017 launched a membership campaign and began accepting donations from readers 3 In addition to political claims the site monitors the progress elected officials make on their campaign promises including a Trump O Meter for President Donald Trump an Obameter for President Barack Obama and a Biden Promise Tracker for President Joe Biden PolitiFact com s local affiliates review promises by elected officials of regional relevance as evidenced by PolitiFact Tennessee s Haslam O Meter tracking Tennessee Governor Bill Haslam s efforts 4 and Wisconsin s Walk O Meter tracking Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker s efforts 5 PolitiFact has won the Pulitzer Prize 6 and has been both praised and criticized by independent observers conservatives and liberals alike Both liberal and conservative bias have been alleged at different points and criticisms have been made that PolitiFact attempts to fact check statements that cannot be truly fact checked 7 8 A survey of 511 stories from 2010 to 2011 found that statements made by Republicans were almost three times as likely to be labeled as false as those of Democrats 9 A larger 2016 analysis by the American Press Institute found that PolitiFact was statistically more likely to be critical of Republicans 10 while a text analysis by the University of Washington in 2018 was not able to detect any systematic differences in the treatment of Democrats and Republicans in articles by Politifact but noted that the analysis cannot determine whether there are partisan biases in Politifact s judgments about truthfulness nor selection of which statements to examine 11 12 Contents 1 History 2 Lie of the Year 3 Reception 3 1 Allegations of political bias 4 Funding 5 See also 6 References 7 External linksHistory EditPolitiFact com was started in August 2007 by Times Washington Bureau Chief Bill Adair in conjunction with the Congressional Quarterly In January 2010 PolitiFact com expanded to its second newspaper the Cox Enterprises owned Austin American Statesman in Austin Texas the feature called PolitiFact Texas covered issues that are relevant to Texas and the Austin area In March 2010 the Times and its partner newspaper The Miami Herald launched PolitiFact Florida which focuses on Florida issues The Times and the Herald share resources on some stories that relate to Florida Since then PolitiFact com expanded to other papers such as The Atlanta Journal Constitution The Providence Journal Milwaukee Journal Sentinel The Plain Dealer Richmond Times Dispatch the Knoxville News Sentinel and The Oregonian The Knoxville News Sentinel ended its relationship with PolitiFact com after 2012 13 In 2013 Adair was named Knight Professor of the Practice of Journalism and Public Policy at Duke University and stepped down as Bureau Chief at the Times and as editor at PolitiFact com 14 The Tampa Bay Times senior reporter Alex Leary succeeded Bill Adair as Bureau Chief on July 1 2013 14 and Angie Drobnic Holan was appointed editor of PolitiFact in October 2013 Adair remains a PolitiFact com contributing editor 15 In 2014 The Plain Dealer ended its partnership with PolitiFact com after they reduced their news staff and were unwilling to meet the required several PolitiFact investigations per week 16 The organization was acquired in February 2018 by the Poynter Institute a non profit journalism education and news media research center that also owns the Tampa Bay Times 17 18 In March 2019 in preparation for the 2020 presidential elections PolitiFact partnered with Noticias Telemundo for fact checking of information given to the Spanish language audience 19 In April 2019 PolitiFact joined forces with Kaiser Health News KHN for health news fact checking 20 In October 2019 insight was given into PolitiFact s Truth O Meter s step by step process of assessing an item s truth as considered true by the Politifact team revealing confirmed facts and including accreditations 21 Lie of the Year EditThis section relies excessively on references to primary sources Please improve this section by adding secondary or tertiary sources Find sources PolitiFact news newspapers books scholar JSTOR February 2021 Learn how and when to remove this template message Since 2009 PolitiFact com has declared one political statement from each year to be the Lie of the Year 2009In December 2009 they declared the Lie of the Year to be Sarah Palin s assertion that the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2009 would lead to government death panels that dictated which types of patients would receive treatment 22 2010In December 2010 PolitiFact com dubbed the Lie of the Year to be the contention among some opponents of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act that it represented a government takeover of healthcare PolitiFact com argued that this was not the case since all health care and insurance would remain in the hands of private companies 23 2011PolitiFact s Lie of the Year for 2011 was a statement by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee DCCC that a 2011 budget proposal by Congressman Paul Ryan entitled The Path to Prosperity and voted for overwhelmingly by Republicans in the House and Senate meant that Republicans voted to end Medicare 24 PolitiFact determined that though it is true the Republican plan would change Medicare fundamentally by forcing the elderly to use private health plans the very thing Medicare was intended to substitute for a radically transformed program could still be termed Medicare so it was not technically true that Republicans voted to end Medicare PolitiFact had originally labeled nine similar statements as false or pants on fire since April 2011 25 2012For 2012 PolitiFact chose the claim made by Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney that President Obama sold Chrysler to Italians who are going to build Jeeps in China at the cost of American jobs 26 The Italians in the quote was a reference to Fiat who had purchased a majority share of Chrysler in 2011 after a U S government bailout of Chrysler 27 PolitiFact had rated the claim Pants on Fire in October 28 PolitiFact s assessment quoted a Chrysler spokesman who had said Jeep has no intention of shifting production of its Jeep models out of North America to China 26 As of 2016 96 7 percent of Jeeps sold in the U S were assembled in the U S 29 with roughly 70 percent North American parts content The vehicle with the most North American parts content came in at 75 30 2013The 2013 Lie of the Year was President Barack Obama s promise that If you like your health care plan you can keep it 31 As evidence PolitiFact cited analysts estimate of 4 million cancellation letters sent to American health insurance consumers PolitiFact also noted that in an online poll readers overwhelmingly agreed with the selection 31 This stands in stark contrast to its October 9 2008 statement that Obama s description of his plan is accurate and we rate his statement True 32 2014PolitiFact s 2014 Lie of the Year was Exaggerations about Ebola referring to 16 separate statements made by various commentators and politicians about the Ebola virus being easy to catch that illegal immigrants may be carrying the virus across the southern border that it was all part of a government or corporate conspiracy These claims were made in the midst of the Ebola virus epidemic in West Africa when four cases were diagnosed in the United States in travelers from West Africa and nurses who treated them PolitiFact wrote The claims all wrong distorted the debate about a serious public health issue 33 2015PolitiFact s 2015 Lie of the Year was the various statements made by 2016 Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump Politifact found that 76 of Trump s statements that they reviewed were rated Mostly False False or Pants on Fire Statements that were rated Pants on Fire included his assertion that the Mexican government sends the bad ones over the border into the United States and his claim that he saw thousands and thousands of people cheering the collapse of the World Trade Center on 9 11 34 2016PolitiFact s 2016 Lie of the Year was fake news referring to fabricated news stories including the Pizzagate conspiracy theory 35 2017PolitiFact s 2017 Lie of the Year was Donald Trump s claim that Russian election interference is a made up story 36 The annual poll found 56 36 of the 5080 respondents agreed that Trump s Pants on Fire statement deserved the distinction 37 Raul Labrador s statement that Nobody dies because they don t have access to health care and Sean Spicer s statement that Trump s audience was the largest audience to witness an inauguration period came in second and third place getting 14 47 and 14 25 of the vote respectively In its article PolitiFact points to multiple occasions where Donald Trump stated that Russia had not interfered with the election despite multiple government agencies claiming otherwise 2018Politifact s 2018 Lie of the Year was that survivors of the Stoneman Douglas High School shooting were crisis actors These conspiracy theories were spread on blogs and social media by sources including InfoWars 38 and targeted students including X Gonzalez and David Hogg who became prominent gun control activists in the wake of the shooting and helped organize the March for our Lives 2019Politifact s 2019 Lie of the Year was Donald Trump s claim that the anonymous whistleblower who reported possible presidential misconduct got the report of his phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky almost completely wrong 39 The whistleblower complaint alleged that President Trump urged President Zelensky to conduct an investigation into Trump s political rival in return for promised military aid 2020The 2020 Lie of the Year was misinformation related to the COVID 19 pandemic specifically theories that either deny the existence of the disease outright or claim that the disease is much less deadly than it actually is In particular Donald Trump was mentioned as a main supporter of such conspiracy theories 40 2021The 2021 Lie of the Year was lies related to the 2021 United States Capitol attack and its significance 41 2022The 2022 Lie of the Year was Disinformation in the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine being propagated by Vladimir Putin 42 Reception EditPolitiFact com was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting in 2009 for its fact checking initiative during the 2008 presidential campaign that used probing reporters and the power of the World Wide Web to examine more than 750 political claims separating rhetoric from truth to enlighten voters 43 A Wall Street Journal opinion editorial by Joseph Rago in December 2010 called PolitiFact part of a larger journalistic trend that seeks to recast all political debates as matters of lies misinformation and facts rather than differences of world view or principles 44 TV critic James Poniewozik at Time characterized PolitiFact as having the hard earned and important position as referee in the mudslinging contest a truth vigilante as it were and PolitiFact is trying to do the right thing here And despite the efforts of partisans to work the refs by complaining about various calls they ve made in the past they re generally doing a hard important thing well They often do it better than the rest of the political media and the political press owes them for doing it Poniewozik also suggested they need to improve their rating system to address the irresponsible the unprovable the dubious Otherwise they re doing exactly what they were founded to stop using language to spread false impressions 45 Mark Hemingway of The Weekly Standard criticized all fact checking projects by news organizations including PolitiFact the Associated Press and the Washington Post writing that they aren t about checking facts so much as they are about a rearguard action to keep inconvenient truths out of the conversation 46 In December 2011 Northeastern University journalism professor Dan Kennedy wrote in The Huffington Post that the problem with fact checking projects was there are only a finite number of statements that can be subjected to thumbs up thumbs down fact checking 47 Matt Welch in the February 2013 issue of Reason magazine criticized PolitiFact and other media fact checkers for focusing much more on statements by politicians about their opponents rather than statements by politicians and government officials about their own policies thus serving as a check on the exercise of rhetoric but not a check on the exercise of power 48 PolitiFact retracted its fact check about a lab leak as the possible origin of COVID 19 The site had originally stated that the lab leak was a conspiracy theory that has been debunked since the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic However after some scientists said they were too quick to discount a possible link the lab leak theory 49 PolitiFact changed its evaluation of the claim to unsupported by evidence and in dispute 50 51 Allegations of political bias Edit This section needs to be updated The reason given is no updates since 2013 Please help update this article to reflect recent events or newly available information December 2021 PolitiFact has drawn allegations of political bias from both left leaning and right leaning media outlets 52 53 54 Overall right leaning outlets get more negative results from fact checkers than those on the left including at PolitiFact which some right wing commentators have interpreted as evidence of bias 54 In February 2011 University of Minnesota political science professor Eric Ostermeier analyzed 511 PolitiFact stories issued from January 2010 through January 2011 He found that the number of statements analyzed from Republicans and from Democrats was comparable but Republicans had been assigned substantially harsher grades receiving false or pants on fire more than three times as often as Democrats The report found that In total 74 of the 98 statements by political figures judged false or pants on fire over the last 13 month were given to Republicans or 76 percent compared to just 22 statements for Democrats 22 percent Ostermeier observed that PolitiFact was not transparent about how the comments were selected for analysis and raised the possibility that the more negative evaluations of Republican comments might be the result of selection bias concluding The question is not whether PolitiFact will ultimately convert skeptics on the right that they do not have ulterior motives in the selection of what statements are rated but whether the organization can give a convincing argument that either a Republicans in fact do lie much more than Democrats or b if they do not that it is immaterial that PolitiFact covers political discourse with a frame that suggests this is the case 55 In response PolitiFact editor Bill Adair stated in MinnPost W e re accustomed to hearing strong reactions from people on both ends of the political spectrum We are a news organization and we choose which facts to check based on news judgment We check claims that we believe readers are curious about claims that would prompt them to wonder Is that true 56 An independent 2013 analysis from the nonpartisan Center for Media and Public Affairs at George Mason University showed results consistent with the findings of the aforementioned 2011 study concluding that PolitiFact was three times as likely to rank statements from Republicans as Pants on Fire and twice as likely to rank statements from Democrats as Entirely True The disparity in these evaluations came despite roughly equally attention paid to statements made by representatives of the two parties 50 4 percent for the GOP versus 47 2 percent for the Democrats with 2 4 percent attention paid to statements from independents 57 Funding EditSince 2010 PolitiFact has received funding from 58 AmeriHealth Caritas Bill amp Melinda Gates Foundation Collins Center for Public Policy Common Cause Community Foundation of New Jersey Craig Newmark Philanthropies Craigslist Charitable Fund Democracy Fund Dume Wolverine Foundation Facebook Ford Foundation Friends of the Earth Google News Initiative Grounds for Promotion International Fact Checking Network Knight Foundation Microsoft Newton amp Rochelle Becker Charitable Trust Reynolds Journalism Institute SmartNews Stelter Foundation TikTok The Trust ProjectSee also Edit Journalism portalThe Fact Checker Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting FactCheck org Snopes comReferences Edit PolitiFact com St Petersburg Times Archived from the original on August 15 2010 Retrieved August 16 2010 Adair Bill Principles of PolitiFact PunditFact and the Truth O Meter PolitiFact Archived from the original on April 18 2014 Retrieved April 12 2014 Who is PolitiFact Who pays for PolitiFact PolitiFact January 12 2017 Archived from the original on May 29 2017 Retrieved May 30 2017 Haslam O Meter Tracking the promises of Bill Haslam PolitiFact Tennessee Archived from the original on March 22 2012 Retrieved March 19 2012 Walk O Meter Tracking the promises of Scott Walker PolitiFact Wisconsin Archived from the original on July 14 2015 Retrieved July 14 2015 2009 Pulitzer Prizes Pulitzer Prizes Pulitzer Prizes January 3 2009 Retrieved January 3 2009 Claiming persistent bias Democratic Party to stop taking PolitiFact s calls Archived March 23 2016 at the Wayback Machine Milwaukee Magazine Erik Gunn June 14 2011 PolitiFact RI once again shows right wing bias Archived December 23 2015 at the Wayback Machine Rhode Island Future Samuel Bell May 25 2013 Ostermeier Eric Selection Bias PolitiFact Rates Republican Statements as False at 3 Times the Rate of Democrats Smart Politics University of Minnesota Retrieved February 10 2011 Farnsworth Stephen A Comparative Analysis of the Partisan Targets of Media Fact checking Examining President Obama and the 113th Congress PDF American Press Institute American Press Institute Retrieved May 3 2021 Dallas Card Lucy H Lin and Noah A Smith Politifact Language Audit PDF University of Washington Department of Computer Science a href Template Cite web html title Template Cite web cite web a CS1 maint multiple names authors list link CS1 maint url status link Is PolitiFact biased This content analysis says no Poynter August 10 2018 Retrieved December 31 2021 McElroy Jack News Sentinel dropping out of PolitiFact Knoxnews com The E W Scripps Co Archived from the original on May 25 2013 Retrieved April 16 2014 a b Bill Adair PolitiFact Editor Named Knight Professor at Duke Archived April 5 2017 at the Wayback Machine April 5 2013 New editors named for PolitiFact and PunditFact Tampa Bay TimesOctober 10 2013 Angie Drobnic Holan PolitiFact Editor Archived April 2 2015 at the Wayback Machine Staff bio Archived September 5 2017 at the Wayback Machine Diadiun Ted January 25 2014 Coming Truth squad reporting without the gimmicks Cleveland Plain Dealer Northeast Ohio Media Group LLC Archived from the original on April 13 2014 Retrieved April 12 2014 Poynter Expands Fact Checking Franchise by Acquiring PolitiFact com February 12 2018 Archived from the original on February 13 2018 PolitiFact goes nonprofit moves to Poynter Institute PolitiFact Retrieved August 22 2018 Noticias Telemundo Partners With Poynter s PolitiFact Begin Prep For 2020 Election MediaPost March 22 2019 Retrieved September 19 2021 PolitiFact announces an exclusive health news fact checking partnership with Kaiser Health News Kaiser Family Foundation April 2 2019 Retrieved September 21 2020 Fact checking fact checkers The Jerusalem Post October 23 2019 Retrieved September 22 2020 PolitiFact s Lie of the Year Death panels Archived December 22 2009 at the Wayback Machine Angie Drobnic Holan PolitiFact com December 18 2009 PolitiFact s Lie of the Year A government takeover of health care Archived December 19 2010 at the Wayback Machine Bill Adair and Angie Drobnic Holan PolitiFact com December 16 2010 Lie of the Year 2011 Republicans voted to end Medicare Archived August 15 2017 at the Wayback Machine PolitiFact com December 20 2011 Democrats say Republicans voted to end Medicare and charge seniors 12 000 PolitiFact April 20 2011 Archived from the original on December 12 2011 Retrieved December 22 2011 a b Holan Angie Drobnic December 12 2012 Lie of the Year the Romney campaign s ad on Jeeps made in China PolitiFact Archived from the original on December 12 2012 Retrieved December 12 2012 Bunkley Nick July 21 2011 Government Sells Stake in Chrysler The New York Times Archived from the original on November 4 2014 Mitt Romney says Obama s Chrysler deal undermined U S workers PolitiFact October 29 2012 Archived from the original on December 8 2012 Retrieved December 12 2012 Jeep most American made brand with nearly 97 percent of its vehicles born in the USA KCTV5 News Kansas City June 28 2016 Archived from the original on September 17 2016 Retrieved September 7 2016 15 Trucks SUVs and Vans With the Most North American Made Parts Motor Trend February 20 2015 Archived from the original on September 4 2016 Retrieved September 7 2016 a b Drobnic Holan Angie December 12 2013 Lie of the Year If you like your health care plan you can keep it PolitiFact com Archived from the original on December 13 2013 Retrieved December 12 2013 Roy Avik December 27 2013 Pants On Fire PolitiFact Tries To Hide That It Rated True in 2008 Obamacare s Keep Your Health Plan Promise Forbes Retrieved January 13 2019 Angie Drobnic Holan Aaron Sharockman December 15 2014 2014 Lie of the Year Exaggerations about Ebola PolitiFact Archived from the original on October 25 2017 2015 Lie of the Year the campaign misstatements of Donald Trump Archived March 27 2016 at the Wayback Machine Angie Drobnic Holan and Linda Qiu PolitiFact com December 21 2015 PolitiFact s 2016 Lie of the Year Fake news Archived from the original on September 4 2017 2017 Lie of the Year Russian election action is a hoax politifact com Archived from the original on March 21 2018 Retrieved April 30 2018 2017 Lie of the Year Readers Poll results politifact com Archived from the original on April 26 2018 Retrieved April 30 2018 Holan Angie Drobnic Sherman Amy December 11 2018 PolitiFact s Lie of the Year Online smear machine tries to take down Parkland students politifact com Retrieved December 12 2018 Lie of the Year Trump s claim whistleblower got it wrong PolitiFact Retrieved December 19 2019 Funke Daniel Sanders Katie December 16 2020 Lie of the Year Coronavirus downplay and denial PolitiFact Retrieved January 15 2021 Holan Angie Drobnic McCarthy Bill Sherman Amy December 15 2021 The 2021 Lie of the Year Lies about the Jan 6 Capitol attack and its significance PolitiFact Retrieved May 10 2022 Catalanello Rebecca Jacobson Louis December 13 2022 Lie of the Year 2022 Putin s lies to wage war and conceal horror in Ukraine PolitiFact Retrieved December 31 2022 The 2009 Pulitzer Prize Winners Archived September 19 2009 at the Wayback Machine Retrieved August 16 2010 PolitiFiction True Lies about Obamacare The Wall Street Journal December 23 2010 Archived from the original on February 1 2015 PolitiFact s decree is part of a larger journalistic trend that seeks to recast all political debates as matters of lies misinformation and facts rather than differences of world view or principles PolitiFact is run by the St Petersburg Times and has marketed itself to other news organizations on the pretense of impartiality Poniewozik James August 8 2012 PolitiFact Harry Reid s Pants and the Limits of Fact Checking Time Archived from the original on September 11 2016 But if their rating system designed ironically to abet the truth by making it as easy to spread via catchphrase as a lie is sending false messages then they need to improve their rating system to address the irresponsible the unprovable the dubious Otherwise they re doing exactly what they were founded to stop using language to spread false impressions You can tell them a guy told you that about them Hemingway Mark December 19 2011 Lies Damned Lies and Fact Checking The Weekly Standard Archived from the original on January 5 2012 Kennedy Dan December 13 2011 PolitiFact and the Limits of Fact Checking The Huffington Post Archived from the original on March 17 2012 Welch Matt February 2013 The Truth Hurts How the fact checking press gives the president a pass Reason Archived from the original on January 20 2013 Glenn Kessler May 25 2021 Timeline How the Wuhan lab leak theory suddenly became credible The Washington Post Retrieved June 4 2021 Archived fact check Tucker Carlson guest airs debunked conspiracy theory that COVID 19 was created in a lab Politifact May 17 2021 Retrieved June 4 2021 Chait Jonathan May 24 2021 How the Liberal Media Dismissed the Lab Leak Theory and Smeared Its Supporters New York Retrieved June 4 2021 Hudson John December 20 2011 PolitiFact Just Lost the Left The Atlantic Retrieved May 2 2021 Marx Greg January 5 2012 What the Fact Checkers Get Wrong Columbia Journalism Review Retrieved May 2 2021 a b Graves Lucas June 4 2013 What We Can Learn from the Factcheckers Ratings Columbia Journalism Review Retrieved May 6 2019 Ostermeier Eric February 10 2011 Selection Bias PolitiFact Rates Republican Statements as False at 3 Times the Rate of Democrats Smart Politics Archived from the original on August 14 2017 Brauer David February 15 2011 Politifact responds to U researcher s anti GOP bias claim MinnPost Archived from the original on April 2 2015 Retrieved March 26 2015 Davis Katy May 28 2013 Study Media Fact Checker Says Republicans Lie More The Center for Media and Public Affairs Retrieved May 2 2021 Who Pays For PolitiFact PolitiFact January 2022 Archived from the original on May 9 2022 Retrieved December 6 2022 External links EditOfficial website Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title PolitiFact amp oldid 1134476125, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,

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