An independent experimental fact-checking site, exploring and advocating ways to make fact-checking better.
“White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said that immigrants coming to the United States through the diversity visa program are not vetted before their arrival.” —PolitiFact, from a Nov. 2, 2017 fact check of Sarah Huckabee Sanders Summary PolitiFact may have misled its readers about what Sanders was saying. Background facts After an immigrant acting in the name…
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To what degree do GOP health care reform proposals kick people off health insurance? Is there a Democrat who has failed to repeat the talking point that one or another such bill will kick some millions off their insurance? The claim appears ubiquitous, yet fact checkers like the Washington Post Fact Checker and PolitiFact have pretty much ignored the deceptive…
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President Donald J. Trump has said illegal border crossings dipped 78 percent under his administration. Mainstream fact checkers have lumped that claim in with an associated claim, that immigration has gone up under other administrations. Their fact checks have tended to focus on this second claim instead of Trump’s claim of a 78 percent decrease. PolitiFact piqued our interest in…
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America’s “elite three” fact checkers all bring an inconsistent approach to fact checks that address budget cuts. Specifically, PolitiFact, FactCheck.org and the Washington Post Fact Checker each defended the Democrats’ Affordable Care Act against the charge it cut Medicare. But each made sure that the Republicans’ 2017 budget proposals for Medicaid were understood as clear budget cuts. The cases had…
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Note (Dec. 29, 2016): We have updated this item in response to a critique from Aaron Huertas, the main target of our criticism. Find a description of the changes as well as the original version of the article here. Did Florida’s state government issue a gag order stopping state employees from discussing climate change? A Dec. 22, 2016 article published…
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On July 29, 2016, we fact checked PolitiFact California’s ruling finding it “True” that Republican vice presidential candidate Mike Pence once advocated diverting federal money from AIDS care efforts toward gay “conversion therapy.” On Dec. 2, 2016 PolitiFact California changed its ruling to “Half True.” As with Snopes.com’s “Mixture” rating of the claim about Pence and conversion therapy, we regard…
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If it’s about Trump it’s too good to check? Fact checkers in 2016 (not to mention 2015) showed a tendency to take vague statements from Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump and upgrade those statements via interpretation into relatively clear statements. On December 2, 2016 a new PolitiFact story led us indirectly to a great example of this tendency. Lauren Carroll’s…
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“Donald Trump has repeatedly said he is OK with more countries having nukes.” —Headline from LA Times fact check, Oct. 4, 2016 “Donald Trump wrongly tweets that he ‘never said’ more countries should have nuclear weapons.” —Headline from PolitiFact fact check of Donald Trump, Nov. 14, 2016 Summary Does Donald Trump favor nuclear proliferation? Saying a nation…
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“Mike Pence once supported the use of federal funding to treat people ‘seeking to change their sexual behavior.’” —Snopes.com, from a fact check published on Oct. 27, 2016 Overview Snopes’ fact check does too much to leave legs on a legless claim about Pence supporting the use of federal funds for gay “conversion therapy.” Background Facts Republican vice…
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The mainstream fact checkers can’t seem to wait to grasp one of the Holy Grails of fact-checking: Live fact-checking. The problem? Live fact-checking leads directly toward a magnification of one of fact-checking’s standard problems, selection bias. In standard fact-checking, the fact checkers pick a claim and then take their time in (hopefully!) getting the facts right and then reporting on…
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