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PolitiFact’s Jan. 28, 2022 fact check of a claim by Fox News’ Sean Hannity mistakenly rated his claim as though it used an “or” conditional instead of an “and” conditional. The resulting conclusion (“False”) flew in the face of logic. We noticed a fair amount of pushback against PolitiFact’s conclusion on Twitter, but after PolitiFact spent days making no move…
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On Jan. 21, 2022, after PolitiFact declined to act in response to our Jan. 14, 2022 correction request, we sent this formal complaint to the International Fact-Checking Network, noting on the complaint form that PolitiFact’s inaction breached its pledge to “scrupulously” adhere to an open and honest policy on corrections. Updated a few minutes after publication to add the date…
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After trying and failing to secure a correction from PolitiFact and fact checker Louis Jacobson using Twitter, Zebra Fact Check sent an email to “[email protected]” in order to obtain the correction. PolitiFact had quoted Hillary Rodham Clinton as saying “so many women are still paid less for men than the same work,” but Clinton hadn’t said that.
We saw something funny on PolitiFact’s Facebook page the other day. It was a video purporting to answer questions about PolitiFact’s trademarked “Truth-O-Meter” system for rating the relative truth of political statements. We would count the explanatory video as an unmitigated disaster. Much of PolitiFact’s video deserves critical commentary. We invite readers to watch the embedded video via YouTube before…
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On Sept. 30, 2021 Zebra Fact Check sent an email inquiry to PolitiFact’s editor of audience engagement, Josie Hollingsworth. Hollingsworth claimed in an explainer video that “Truth-O-Meter” jury members have multiple years working with PolitiFact’s rating system. We found that hard to reconcile with PolitiFact’s past practice of having state franchises provide their own “Truth-O-Meter” juries, with assistance as needed…
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Our description of our correction request published to the website on Sept. 14, 2021 contained errors based on false conclusions we drew about CDC data. Zebra Fact Check sought a correction from Repustar/FactSparrow based on our belief it had failed to distinguish between CDC statistics on new hospital admissions and hospitalizations. In fact, Zebra Fact Check erred its interpretation of…
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Fact checker Repustar, represented on Twitter as “FactSparrow,” published a fact brief that (we believed) confused hospital admissions for coronavirus with coronavirus hospitalizations, though the CDC reports very different statistics for each. After seeing no movement on the issue based on Twitter outreach, Zebra Fact Check emailed Repustar to encourage a correction to the misinformation (we believed we detected). Update…
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The go-to paper on avian mortality from power plant operation has little to back its conclusions about plants using fossil fuels, and fact checkers struggle to describe it correctly. A funny thing happened when media fact checker PolitiFact looked into the question of birds killed by fossil fuel-burning power plants. PolitiFact either neglected to check the facts or neglected to…
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On Aug. 23, 2021 we sent an email to the president of Conservatives for Responsible Stewardship, David Jenkins. PolitiFact quoted Jenkins it its flawed fact check on avian deaths from electrical power plants.
Zebra Fact Check discovered a significant error with information from a cited source in an Aug. 17, 2021 fact check of Rep. Louis Gohmert (R-Texas). We sent a correction request via email on Aug. 20, 2021. We sent our email while preparing to include a table from the problem source, so we sent a second email to add that image….
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