An independent experimental fact-checking site, exploring and advocating ways to make fact-checking better.
The Need for Polarized Teams in Fact-Checking Could the use of polarized teams improve political fact checking? We have noted in the past that mainstream fact checkers might easily avoid many of their mistakes by pursuing ideological diversity in their work groups. We find it obvious that ideological diversity offers an easy way for media outlets to appeal to a…
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Each month we pose a question to International Fact-Checking Network Director Alexios Mantzarlis. ZEBRA FACT CHECK (July 9, 2018) Hypothetical: Evidence reveals the Washington Post Fact Checker, Glenn Kessler, as a long-time partisan Republican (with a history of partisan political donations and advocating for political issues that he fact checked). What happens in terms of IFCN verification, if anything?…
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Each month we pose a question to International Fact-Checking Network Director Alexios Mantzarlis. It is our policy to publish the question during the month it was asked regardless of whether we have received a reply. If Mantzarlis replies later we will add his reply promptly to the page where we published the question. We’re tardy posting the June 2018 question,…
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PolitiFact recently partnered with a television news channel, Newsy, to spread its fact-checking content. Ordinarily the video version of a fact-check simplifies the fact check and further distorts any inaccuracies. But the Newsy version of a July 2, 2018 PolitiFact fact check actually does a more complete job of reporting. That said, the fact check of a President Trump claim…
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PolitiFact Does a Poor Job With Corrections. We’ve belabored the point that PolitiFact has yet to fix two problems we pointed out to the International Fact-Checking Network. The independent assessor chosen by the IFCN wrote that the problems we pointed out deserved a reply. But despite the passage of months we have seen no evidence PolitiFact has either run a…
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