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On May 26, 2020 Zebra Fact Check followed up on its correction request submitted to PolitiFact by lodging a formal complaint about PolitiFact to the International Fact-Checking Network. The complaint suggests that PolitiFact’s failure to abide by its own principles for purposes of a Truth-O-Meter rating fail the IFCN Code of Principles on the issue of fairness. Further, PolitiFact’s failure…
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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.
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.
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.
On Jan. 19, 2021, Zebra Fact Check again asked the International Fact-Checking Network to explain the verification status for the fact-checking organization PolitiFact. PolitiFact’s annual verification expired June 20, 2020. The IFCN ordinarily allows a three-month grace period for renewal. The three-month grace period expired Sept. 20, 2020. In 2020 the IFCN also allowed for longer grace periods to counter…
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On Dec. 18, 2020 Zebra Fact Check submitted a new complaint about the mainstream fact checker PolitiFact to the International Fact-Checking Network. PolitiFact and the IFCN are both owned by the nonprofit Poynter Institute. In a nutshell, the complaint points toward a long-running study of PolitiFact’s subjective application of its “Pants on Fire” rating as evidence PolitiFact does not exhibit…
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The International Fact-Checking Network allowed its stable of verified fact-checking organizations an extended period to complete their renewal process, thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic. The normal window for renewal is three months. The IFCN, so far as we are aware, has established no limit on the extended grace period. The IFCN has, however, invited the public to ask the IFCN…
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