Author Archive: Bryan W. White
Bryan W. White
November 11, 2019
After confirming that the IFCN’s outside assessor responsible for PolitiFact’s 2019 IFCN verification renewal had not received complaints submitted to the IFCN about PolitiFact, we reached out to the International Fact-Checking Network to find out more information and try to resolve the problem. The email exchange with PolitiFact Director Baybars Örsek spans about two months. Find a .pdf version of…
Read more
Bryan W. White
November 7, 2019
When numerous media outlets produced conflicting reports, op-eds and fact checks on whether Hillary Clinton said the Russians were grooming Democratic Party presidential candidate Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, Zebra Fact Check weighed in on the issue. After looking at the whole context of the Clinton interview on David Plouffe’s podcast, we said Clinton had tended to mix statements about Trump campaign…
Read more
Bryan W. White
October 24, 2019
Editor’s note: This post was scheduled to publish at 8:01 a.m. on Oct. 24, 2019. A malfunction kept the post from publishing. Working to address the problem resulted in it publishing at 11:05 a.m. but with the 8:01 a.m. time stamp. We then immediately added this note and corrected the time stamp. On Oct. 21, 2019 Zebra Fact Check sent…
Read more
Bryan W. White
October 24, 2019
We have transcribed parts of two segments of a David Plouffe podcast (alternative link) featuring a Hillary Clinton interview. The segments provide critical context for a fact check conducted by fact-checking organization Lead Stories. We cite fair use as our justification for producing these transcripts. The transcripts are tagged as resource pages and are not set for indexing by search…
Read more
Bryan W. White
October 24, 2019
An Oct. 18, 2019 story at National Review said Hillary Clinton claimed the Russians were grooming Democratic Party presidential candidate Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-HI) for a third-party campaign. And the fact checkers at Lead Stories, a fact-checking organization verified by the International Fact-Checking Network called it a hoax. Lead Stories was wrong. But its role as a Facebook fact-checking partner…
Read more
Bryan W. White
October 15, 2019
On Aug. 21, 2019 Zebra Fact Check reached out to PolitiFact regarding flawed reporting in an Aug. 20, 2019 fact check published by PolitiFact Wisconsin. The text of the email follows in .pdf format.
Bryan W. White
October 15, 2019
When we found PolitiFact making a questionable claim about legal scholars and the special counsel law, we reached out to the PolitiFact writer, Jon Greenberg. After receiving no response from Greenberg we reached out to PolitiFact regarding the same issue. The text of our message to PolitiFact follows, in .pdf format.
Bryan W. White
October 15, 2019
On July 24, 2019 PolitiFact published a fact check of Republican John Ratcliffe’s claim that Special Counsel Robert Mueller did not follow the special counsel regulations. The PolitiFact fact check, by Jon Greenberg, said PolitiFact found no legal scholar who agreed with Ratcliffe. Before reading Greenberg’s fact check, we were aware that respected author and former federal prosecutor Andrew C….
Read more
Bryan W. White
October 14, 2019
On Sept. 5, 2019 Zebra Fact Check submitted a complaint to the International Fact-Checking Network, offering evidence PolitiFact failed to scrupulously adhere to an open and honest corrections policy. The text of the complaint follows in .pdf format.
Bryan W. White
October 14, 2019
On Aug. 1, 2019 Zebra Fact Check sent an email to PolitiFact questioning the premise of a fact check and asking PolitiFact to reconcile contradictory reporting in two of its fact checks. As of this date, over two months later, we detect no evidence PolitiFact has moved to fix either problem with its reporting. The email message appears below in…
Read more