An independent experimental fact-checking site, exploring and advocating ways to make fact-checking better.
After PolitiFact published an article supposedly explaining “great replacement theory,” with Tucker Carlson as a key focus, PolitiFact published a preposterous piece on May 19, 2022 claiming Carlson feigned not knowing about “great replacement theory.” Fox News host Tucker Carlson falsely claimed he was unfamiliar with the racist and antisemitic “great replacement theory” cited by the mass shooter in Buffalo,…
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For years, we have scratched our heads over PolitiFact’s spotty compliance with its own policies. Zebra Fact Check has built a collection of correction requests where PolitiFact has either ignored the request or made a correction without following its policy on corrections. A PolitiFact Fact Check from May 26, 2022 introduces another stellar example of the fact checkers’ clay feet….
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On May 5, 2022 at around 8:00 a.m. EDT, Zebra Fact Check sent a pair of correction requests to PolitiFact. One of the correction requests concerned a false statement PolitiFact included as a subheading. PolitiFact claimed a trailer for a film about the 2020 presidential election, “2000 Mules,” based its case on “cell phone footage.” That claim contradicted the content…
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Kaiser Family Foundation said abortion ‘moments before birth’ is not legal in the U.S. We asked KFF for justification and did not hear back.
On April 7, 2022 PolitiFact published a fact check concerning Colorado’s new abortion law. PolitiFact drew immediate criticism on social media for failing to support its conclusion. Colorado law and late term abortion After a Facebook post said Colorado’s law codifying state abortion rights made abortion legal up until delivery, PolitiFact stepped in to fact check. PolitiFact’s fact check, by…
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In 2021 PolitiFact produced a video explainer about its “Truth-O-Meter” process. We reviewed the video in our article “PolitiFact’s misleading ‘Truth-O-Meter’ explainer” on Oct. 4, 2021. A tweet from PolitiFact’s Louis Jacobson on March 10, 2022 impels us to revisit the subject. Jacobson’s mention of the “chamber” suggested he was talking about the “star chamber” for PolitiFact New York. That…
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PolitiFact’s video explainer for critical race theory hides from its audience the movement’s postmodernist hostility to Western culture.
We saw something funny on PolitiFact’s Facebook page the other day. It was a video purporting to answer questions about PolitiFact’s trademarked “Truth-O-Meter” system for rating the relative truth of political statements. We would count the explanatory video as an unmitigated disaster. Much of PolitiFact’s video deserves critical commentary. We invite readers to watch the embedded video via YouTube before…
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The go-to paper on avian mortality from power plant operation has little to back its conclusions about plants using fossil fuels, and fact checkers struggle to describe it correctly. A funny thing happened when media fact checker PolitiFact looked into the question of birds killed by fossil fuel-burning power plants. PolitiFact either neglected to check the facts or neglected 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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