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After Sen. Ted Cruz needled mainstream fact-checker PolitiFact by calling it “a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Democratic Party,” PolitiFact responded with a hilariously tone-deaf article PolitiSplaining why it was not, in fact, a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Democratic Party. The conservative media criticism site Newsbusters piled on with an article intended to show PolitiFact’s partiality to the political left. But…
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In March of 2019 we noticed some discrepancies in a gender wage gap article by Warren Fiske of PolitiFact Virginia. We sent messages asking about the discrepancies and received replies from Fiske. Notably, PolitiFact did make at least three changes to its story in apparent response to our messages. The email exchange occurs below, excluding some extra messages stemming from…
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On Feb. 26, 2019 Zebra Fact Check sent a message to the International Fact-Checking Network detailing PolitiFact’s failure to adhere to an open and honest policy on corrections. Our use of an apostrophe in the filename for our .pdf may have delayed IFCN’s receipt of the message, but it was eventually received (we resubmitted the file with a new name…
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On Feb. 19, 2019 Zebra Fact Check sent an email to PolitiFact alerting it to a highly misleading paragraph in its article explaining Sen. Bernie Sanders’ Medicare For All proposal. The text of the message follows in .pdf format:
In January 2019 (likely Jan. 23, 2019 based on its edit history) we sent a complaint to the International Fact-Checking Network regarding PolitiFact’s failure to adhere to an open and honest corrections policy. The message detailed PolitiFact’s failure to support its conclusion that President Trump had contradicted himself on the subject of Mexico paying by check for the proposed U.S….
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On Jan. 16, 2019, Zebra Fact Check sent an email to PolitiFact alerting the IFCN-certified fact checkers that their fact check of President Trump on Jan 10, 2019 (our email incorrectly says 2018) failed to produce adequate evidence of an alleged contradiction. As of Sept. 15, 2019 we could detect no action on PolitiFact’s part to explain or correct the…
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On October 5, 2018 we submitted a complaint through the IFCN noting PolitiFact Missouri’s ruling on a claim from Republican Josh Hawley unduly ignored the precision of Hawley’s statement. This complaint differs from most of the others in that PolitiFact sent a response. It is worth noting that we specifically requested a response in this case. It is also worth…
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We have long criticized PolitiFact for failing to heed reasonable requests for corrections as well as its too-frequent failures to follow its own corrections policies. When the International Fact-Checking Network committed itself to the role of policing signatories to its statement of principles and stated it would accept and review specific complaints about the fact-checking organizations under its umbrella, we…
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On Nov. 14, 2018 we sent a message to PolitiFact regarding an omitted piece of evidence in its “PunditFact” fact check of a claim by Ken Blackwell. As of Sept. 15, 2019 we received no response from PolitiFact and have noted no corrective change to its Aug. 29, 2018 report, though the omitted evidence was reported in the Poynter-owned Tampa…
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On September 20, 2018 we registered a complaint about PolitiFact through the International Fact-Checking Network. A .pdf image of that complaint follows: