Email outreach to the International Fact-Checking Network, Sept. 7, 2020
After garnering no reply to our outreach attempt on Aug. 28, 2020, Zebra Fact Check sent a follow-up email asking the same questions but with an updated subject header.
Latest Posts
Email outreach to the International Fact-Checking Network, Aug. 28, 2020
The complaint Zebra Fact Check submitted to the International Fact-Checking Network regarding the Washington Post Fact Checker failed to receive any mention at all in the IFCN’s 2020 assessment of the Fact Checker. Zebra Fact Check reached out to the IFCN to ask for an explanation.
Another International Fact-Checking Network failure on accountability
The International Fact-Checking Network has updated its system for verifying fact-checking organizations’ compliance with its “Code of Principles” in 2020. But in practice so far the new IFCN system seems no better than the one Zebra Fact Check tested in 2019. In 2019 the review of PolitiFact failed to mention complaints Zebra Fact Check submitted. The IFCN failed to deliver…
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Email outreach to Ren LaForme, July 8, 2020
After failing to obtain comment from two earlier inquiries to the Poynter Institute, Zebra Fact Check reached out to Poynter’s editor Ren LaForme. LaForme holds the post occupied by Julie Moos when Poynter dealt with a controversy in 2011 over Jim Romenesko’s method of attribution.
Email outreach to the Poynter Institute, July 6, 2020
Zebra Fact Check emailed the Poynter Institute on July 6, 2020 as part of a continued effort to obtain comment about an unclear attribution in the “Factually” newsletter Poynter publishes jointly with the American Press Institute.
Email outreach to the Poynter Institute’s Kelly McBride, July 3, 2020
Zebra Fact Check emailed Senior Vice President and Chair of Craig Newmark Center for Ethics and Leadership Kelly McBride of the Poynter Institute to ask about an attribution problem with the “Factually” newsletter.
Email outreach to Susan Benkelman of the American Press Institute
After noticing an 20-word verbatim quotation without quotation marks in the “Factually” newsletter jointly published by the American Press Institute and the Poynter Institute, we emailed Susan Benkelman, the API co-author of the July 2, 2020 edition of the newsletter, to find the explanation for not clarifying the attribution and/or adding quotation marks. Benkelman directs API’s accountability journalism program. We…
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Poynter Institute allowing the attribution style that led to Jim Romenesko’s resignation
Things have come full circle at the Poynter Institute in the past 10 years. Jim Romenesko ran a popular journalism blog for the Poynter Institute journalism school until 2011. Romenesko’s blog highlighted stories relating to the field of journalism. But eventually assistant editor Erika Fry of Columbia Journalism Review noticed that Romenesko was using verbatim quotations in his summary blurbs…
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Complaint to the International Fact-Checking Network about the Washington Post Fact Checker, June 29, 2020
After warning the Washington Post about misinformation in its analysis of the allegation of antifa violence at Black Lives Matter protests and seeing no attempt to correct that misinformation, Zebra Fact Check sent a formal complaint to the International Fact-Checking Network.
Correction request sent to the Washington Post Fact Checker, June 26, 2020
A Washington Post Fact Checker analysis from June 22, 2020 misreported information from an ABC News report it cited. Zebra Fact Check formally requested a correction after using Twitter to alert the Post and Post fact checker Glenn Kessler about the problem.