An independent experimental fact-checking site, exploring and advocating ways to make fact-checking better.
Following up on PolitiFact’s failure to correct in response to our July 2020 correction request, Zebra Fact Check lodged a formal complaint with the International Fact-Checking Network on Dec. 23, 2020. The complaint suggests PolitiFact fails to follow an open and honest corrections policy in its refusal to fix an obvious error.
Despite publishing an “In Context” article showing otherwise, PolitiFact published a fact check repeating the false allegation that President Trump used the phrase “very fine people” to refer to neo-Nazis. Zebra Fact Check requested a correction on July 30, 2020. PolitiFact had not corrected the item as of March 11, 2021.
A post today criticizing PolitiFact accounts for our first use of a strikethrough format for the logo of a fact-checking organization.On no account does the new style suggest that we want to eliminate any fact-checking organization so represented. If we want to see a fact-checking organization eliminated, we will assuredly state so plainly and state our reasoning for wanting to…
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Zebra Fact Check has noticed a tendency among mainstream fact checkers to leave “systemic racism” alone as a fact-checking topic. The so-called “elite three” (FactCheck.org, PolitiFact, Washington Post Fact Checker) all suffer a lack of content on the subject. A Democrat can state that systemic racism exists as a reality in any number of contexts and fact-checkers will ignore it….
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Zebra Fact Check considers the avoidance of apples-to-oranges comparisons a completely basic task in fact-checking. Thus, it especially piques our interest when two mainstream fact checkers fact check the same apple fact with orange data when researching the same subject. During his inauguration speech, President Biden said the coronavirus deaths from the past year equaled the number of Americans killed…
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FactCheck.org and PolitiFact committed an error in common in fact-checking President Biden’s inaugural address. Both made statements representing the total U.S. death toll from World War II using statistics for U.S. military deaths and omitting all mention of civilian war dead. Both fact-checking organizations failed to address the error or acknowledge the complaint within a week’s time, leading to the…
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On Jan. 30, 2021 Zebra Fact Check requested a correction from PolitiFact, which falsely reported the total number of U.S. dead from World War II using the total number of U.S. military dead from World War II.
FactCheck.org reported a false number representing the number of Americans killed during World War II, omitting from its total civilian casualties. Zebra Fact Check sent a correction request on Jan. 30, 2021.
We don’t get much material submitted through our “Report an Error” system (see button in right sidebar). But we got one today. We honor the request for anonymity for the person who submitted the error report: The photo of Biden is NOT Biden (and you don’t source the photo).This appears to be all over social media and people are using…
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On Jan. 28, 2021 Zebra Fact Check sent a correction request to PolitiFact. We noticed PolitiFact described a 300 million hoped-for future supply of coronavirus vaccine as 300. PolitiFact issued a correction, though with less transparency than we hoped. Find more details in a post at PolitiFact Bias.