An independent experimental fact-checking site, exploring and advocating ways to make fact-checking better.
Journalists who fact check tend to rely on experts. It makes sense. Journalists possess limited pools of knowledge, and that knowledge is mostly of a general character. Journalists know something about quite a few things rather than having a great deal of knowledge about one specific thing. Therein lies the dilemma for the fact checking journalist. Which expert is right…
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I had hoped the day would not come when I would have to add a corrections page. This is the day. In the fact check published just minutes ago, we belatedly realized that the charitable interpretation of the statement from the Congressional Progressive Caucus just doesn’t make sense. And a charitable interpretation that doesn’t make sense hardly qualifies as charity….
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The Congressional Progressive Caucus: “Across the board tax rate cuts are regressive because a 20 percent tax cut for a millionaire – even as a share of income – amounts to a far greater benefit than a 20 percent cut for a hardworking low income American.” Overview On Dec. 1, 2012 the Congressional Progressive Caucus released its guiding principles for…
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With fiscal cliff negotiations underway, President Obama lobbies for his tax proposal using the White House website. The White House infographic says his tax proposal will “save almost $1.16 trillion.” Overview The portion of the infographic above appears to deal only with Mr. Obama’s proposal on changes to the tax system. His “savings” are apparently nothing more than revenues acquired…
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Sometimes political statements include would-be facts that pique our curiosity but aren’t of any special importance to the overall message. One such occurred during President Obama’s joint press conference with Thailand’s Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra: PRESIDENT OBAMA: Well, let me just say, first of all, that democracy is not something that is static; it’s something that we constantly have…
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I’m on record calling Annenberg Fact Check, perhaps better known as FactCheck.org, the gold standard for mainstream fact checking. At the same time I’m trying to make the case that there’s ample room for competition. There’s potential to supplant today’s gold standard with an improved standard. A Nov. 14 story by former PolitiFact writer Robert Farley serves as an example. …
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President Obama: “By the way, more voters agreed with me on this issue than voted for me. So we’ve got a clear majority of the American people who recognize if we’re going to be serious about deficit reduction, we’ve got to do it in a balanced way.” Overview President Obama made his remark about voters agreeing with him during…
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House Speaker John Boehner: “On Wednesday, I outlined a responsible path forward to avert the fiscal cliff without raising tax rates. About 24 hours after I spoke, the Congressional Budget Office released a report showing that the most harmful consequences of the fiscal cliff come from increasing tax rates. According to Ernst & Young, raising the top rates would destroy…
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President Obama: “But as I’ve said before, we can’t just cut our way to prosperity. If we’re serious about reducing the deficit, we have to combine spending cuts with revenue — and that means asking the wealthiest Americans to pay a little more in taxes. (Applause.) That’s how we did it in the 1990s, when Bill Clinton was President.” …
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Did fact checking fail in 2012? The New York Times‘ David Carr suggests it did: (A)s the campaign draws to a close, it’s clear that it was the truth that ended up as a smoldering wreck. Without getting into a long tick-tock of untruthfulness, a pattern emerged over the summer and fall: both candidates’ campaigns laid out a number…
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