Email outreach to PolitiFact, Oct. 13, 2020
After PolitiFact made a false claim in its Oct. 7, 2020 article on the Pence-Harris vice presidential debate, Zebra Fact Check sent PolitiFact a correction request.
Author Archive: Bryan W. White
The week in weak fact-checking
Mainstream fact checkers have had a terrible October so far in 2020. Their poor performance prompts this answer to the Poynter Institute’s “Factually” newsletter and its “The Week in Fact-checking” with what we’re tempted to call “The Weak in Fact-checking.” FactCheck.org Whitewashes Steele Dossier Annenberg Fact Check (FactCheck.org) chastised Republicans for citing an unverified intelligence report from Russia saying the…
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Snopes’ semantic contortions on Trump & taxes
Mainstream fact checker Snopes.com on Sept. 28, 2016 (tweeted out on its four-year anniversary) published a fact check on whether Donald Trump said not paying federal taxes made him smart. The fact check exemplifies one of the semantic games mainstream fact checkers end up playing: Interpreting claims to fit a narrative instead of giving them a natural contextual interpretation. The…
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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.
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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