Monthly Archive: January 2013
Bryan W. White
January 30, 2013
We were sure we’d need a few more fallacy icons eventually. For some, it’s easier to conceive a design than for others, and because of the ease of the design we started work on a “red herring” design last week. The red herring fallacy is one of the fallacies of distraction, named for the way a reeking fish might throw…
Read more
Bryan W. White
January 29, 2013
“This bill surrenders the hostage Republicans have taken in the past by decoupling the full faith and credit of the United States from cuts to Social Security and Medicare, or anything else. … By passing this bill, Republicans are joining Democrats to say we will not hold the full faith and credit of the United States hostage, and we will…
Read more
Bryan W. White
January 26, 2013
PolitiFact Texas: “Contrary to Gohmert’s characterization … Washington was not speaking about citizens arming themselves in case of government tyranny. Quite the opposite: The president and former general was calling for disciplined troops to fight on behalf of the government.” Overview PolitiFact Texas builds a dandy straw man in honor of Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Texas). The Facts The line from…
Read more
Bryan W. White
January 25, 2013
Attributed to Mark Twain on Facebook and elsewhere: “Religion was invented when the first con man met the first fool.” The Facts: Mark Twain was the pen name of American author Samuel Clemens (1835-1910). Quite a few quotations disparaging religion came from Twain, though he was apparently a Presbyterian. So what about the above quotation that often accompanies a picture…
Read more
Bryan W. White
January 16, 2013
Alas! Sorry for the lack of new content lately. It’s not for lack of effort, as I’ve been working furiously on a fact check of PolitiFact Texas. PolitiFact’s fact check had to do with a statement from President George Washington. My research on this one has proved so extensive that I’m planning a fact check entry as well as a…
Read more
Bryan W. White
January 7, 2013
PolitiFact Florida: “Marco Rubio tweets that GOP didn’t support Social Security changes” Overview Fact checker commits fallacy of equivocation in posting false headline. The Facts Marco Rubio’s tweet from 1:16 p.m. on Dec. 20, 2012: Report that #GOP insisting on changes to social security as part of #fiscalcliff false.BTW those changes are supported by @barackobama. PolitiFact reports…
Read more
Bryan W. White
January 7, 2013
Though I haven’t especially pushed it in the few promotional statements put forth about Zebra Fact Check, it was never lost on me that the name lends itself to fact checking other fact checkers. “Zebra,” of course, often serves as a mildly derisive nickname for sports referees who run about, at least in American football, in uniforms that feature black…
Read more
Bryan W. White
January 6, 2013
Brooks Jackson, the founder of Annenberg Fact Check, published a review in December of his past nine years at FactCheck.org. Titled “Firefighters, Fact-Checking and American Journalism,” the review focuses largely on the role of the fact checker. Jackson deserves credit for steering what is and has been the best fact-checking organization. But his defense of mainstream fact checking does much…
Read more
Bryan W. White
January 1, 2013
Over the past weekend we created two new icons for use with our rating system. First, we filled the anticipated need for an “out of context” icon. We also added an icon for use with statements that rely on or suggest apples-to-oranges comparisons. More planned changes include a revised front-page presentation as well as category pages that display only a…
Read more
Bryan W. White
January 1, 2013
On Dec. 26, Zebra Fact Check published an evaluation of claims by House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi about the Republicans’ “Plan B” for resolving fiscal cliff negotiations. In that article, we noted that the White House put forth a statement similar to Pelosi’s on the official White House blog, and did it with “Get the facts” in the headline. The…
Read more