Monthly Archive: February 2018

What does IFCN verification mean?

This blog post will clear my spindle of two recent issues connected to the International Fact-Checking Network. If you sign and the IFCN does not verify, then you did not sign A recent update to the IFCN’s page of principles and verified signatories to its statement of principles offended our sense of logic. The IFCN encourages fact-checking organizations to subscribe…
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Biased reporters and nonpartisan reporting

Zebra Fact Check logo

On Feb. 2, 2018, the International Fact-Checking Network added the Daily Caller’s fact-checking project, Check Your Fact, to its list of “verified signatories” to its fact-checking code of principles. We’re disappointed at the rush to subscribe to the IFCN’s statement of principles. We find some of the principles arbitrary, and one in particular we find deceptive. The Daily Caller’s effort…
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Does CHIP renewal save $6 billion over 10 years?

“(W)e wanted permanent CHIP, which, by the way, saves $6 billion.” —Nancy Pelosi, from a Jan. 18, 2018 press conference   “CBO analyses back up Pelosi’s numbers. Because the reauthorization of CHIP would essentially take the place of more expensive programs, doing so would eventually net savings for the government. We rate her statement True. —PolitiFact, from a Jan. 24,…
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Inquiry sent to Alison Mitchell of the Congressional Research Service

We sent the following message to Alison Mitchell of the Congressional Research Service in an attempt to clarify the CBO’s language about the “costs” of employment-based insurance under CHIP reauthorization. I’m a fact-checking journalist looking at claims made about the CHIP program renewal. I’ve run across your name more than once while trying to find information on the relationship between…
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