An independent experimental fact-checking site, exploring and advocating ways to make fact-checking better.
Upon finding dubiously sourced information in a byline-less Des Moines Register editorial, Zebra Fact Check reached out to try to find the primary source backing the editorial’s claims. Quickly we realized that the editorial had very probably borrowed, without credit, material from the Whitehouse.gov website. We started our outreach solely with the purpose of obtaining information about the primary source….
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After we noticed an April 11, 2018 newspaper opinion article in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette making misleading statements about Zebra Fact Check and another site I help run, we tried to contact the author, Brenda Looper, via the email address listed on the Democrat-Gazette’s website. We sent the first email on April 11, 2018 and the second on April 13, 2018….
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(Post-publication update note: We published this with no title. We added the title promptly) Email outreach to PolitiFact’s Allison Colburn, Louis Jacobson, Angie Holan and Aaron Sharockman, Sent March 29, 2018. Dear PolitiFact folks, As most of you are probably aware, PolitiFact rated charges the ACA cut Medicare as “Half True” or worse (mostly worse, were you to tell the truth about…
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After writing an article for PolitiFact Bias containing criticisms of a March 3, 2018 PolitiFact fact check, we sent the following email to the writer and editor asking for either a correction or explanation of what looks like a core error. We copied the email to PolitiFact Editor Angie Drobnic Holan, PolitiFact Executive Director Aaron Sharockman and International Fact-Checking Network…
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We sent the following message to Alison Mitchell of the Congressional Research Service in an attempt to clarify the CBO’s language about the “costs” of employment-based insurance under CHIP reauthorization. I’m a fact-checking journalist looking at claims made about the CHIP program renewal. I’ve run across your name more than once while trying to find information on the relationship between…
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As part of a critical assessement of a PolitiFact fact check, we sent an email to PolitiFact Editor Angie Drobnic Holan and PolitiFact Executive Director Aaron Sharockman. If you wonder why I write to you less frequently these days, it is because trying to communicate errors to PolitiFact via email counts as one of the least transparent processes one could…
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We reached out to the Congressional Budget Office to try to get clarification on its report on the 10-year budgetary effect of CHIP reauthorization. A PolitiFact fact check brought to my attention an apparent discrepancy in CBO’s report on the budget effects of extending the CHIP program for 10 years. The text of the report says CHIP saves money because services…
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Email correspondence between Zebra Fact Check and the Raw Story corrections team on January 3, 2017 : Dear RawStory corrections team, Headline: Trump supporters far more likely to read and share ‘fake news’ on social media: study Story (bold emphasis added): They’re still measuring the degree to which fake news impacted the 2016 election, however, this study only measured how…
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Sent Jan. 21, 2017: Dear Jon Greenberg, Angie Drobnic Holan, The fact check you published on Jan. 15, 2017 giving Rand Paul a “Half True” for his claim about Medicaid’s share of ACA coverage contains a major mathematical flaw.The summary of the fact check pulls together the pieces, which do not fit together as your article suggests: Paul said the…
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Email message to PolitiFact’s Lauren Carroll concerning her Aug. 27, 2016 appearance on MSNBC Live. Sent Sept. 4, 2016. Dear Lauren Carroll, (cc Angie Drobnic Holan) I’m a fact checking journalist, and I’m preparing a fact check of claims you made about the “Trump Effect” on MSNBC on Aug. 27, 2016. I’m focusing primarily on the following claim, though the…
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