Monthly Archive: May 2022

PolitiFact’s ‘great replacement’ smear of Tucker Carlson

After PolitiFact published an article supposedly explaining “great replacement theory,” with Tucker Carlson as a key focus, PolitiFact published a preposterous piece on May 19, 2022 claiming Carlson feigned not knowing about “great replacement theory.” Fox News host Tucker Carlson falsely claimed he was unfamiliar with the racist and antisemitic “great replacement theory” cited by the mass shooter in Buffalo,…
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Second Email outreach to Ferdi Ferhat Özsoy of the International Fact-Checking Network, May 26, 2022

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Having received no apparent acknowledgment of our May 16, 2022 inquiry about the International Fact-Checking Network’s complaints process, we sent the same inquiry again on May 26, 2022 with a new subject line. The IFCN busies itself with an annual fact-checking convention this time of year, so that may help explain a slow response.

Uvalde and PolitiFact, updates and corrections

For years, we have scratched our heads over PolitiFact’s spotty compliance with its own policies. Zebra Fact Check has built a collection of correction requests where PolitiFact has either ignored the request or made a correction without following its policy on corrections. A PolitiFact Fact Check from May 26, 2022 introduces another stellar example of the fact checkers’ clay feet….
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Email outreach/correction request submitted to PolitiFact, May 27, 2022

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Zebra Fact Check found PolitiFact had announced an “update” to an article where it had changed existing material as well as adding new material, all without following its own statement of principles for doing an update. Accordingly, we sent PolitiFact an email message to [email protected] asking PolitiFact to follow its policy regarding changes to its story.

Correction requests submitted to PolitiFact May 5 & 6, 2022

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Zebra Fact Check sent two correction requests to PolitiFact on May 5, 2022. The first of the two we documented here. We delayed documenting the second. We decided on the delay because PolitiFact made a change, albeit via stealth edit, after the first correction request but made no apparent change after the second correction request. Under the assumption that submitting…
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Correction request sent to PolitiFact, May 5, 2022

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The first of two correction requests Zebra Fact Check sent to PolitiFact on this date concerned PolitiFact’s fact check of a movie trailer. In its criticism of the “2000 Mules” trailer, PolitiFact included a subheading that falsely described both the trailer and PolitiFact’s evaluation of the trailer. PolitiFact changed the offending line not long after we sent the correction request….
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PolitiFact does a correction–the wrong way

On May 5, 2022 at around 8:00 a.m. EDT, Zebra Fact Check sent a pair of correction requests to PolitiFact. One of the correction requests concerned a false statement PolitiFact included as a subheading. PolitiFact claimed a trailer for a film about the 2020 presidential election, “2000 Mules,” based its case on “cell phone footage.” That claim contradicted the content…
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