An independent experimental fact-checking site, exploring and advocating ways to make fact-checking better.
PolitiFact rated an obviously false statement “Mostly True” with a July 24, 2023 fact check of Vice President Kamala Harris. Accordingly, we submitted a correction request pointing out some of the ways PolitiFact botched the fact check. Correction July 28, 2023: Original title was off by about 20 years on the date of the correction request. Now correctly reads 2023.
Zebra Fact Check noticed a fine case of inconsistent methodology from the fact checkers at PolitiFact. As correction requests go, this one counts as ill-defined. We point out the inconsistency but do not suggest how PolitiFact might fix the problem, for the problem of inconsistency forms a veritable spider’s web of problems with PolitiFact’s fact-checking. In response to our email…
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Zebra Fact Check sent two correction requests to PolitiFact on May 5, 2022. The first of the two we documented here. We delayed documenting the second. We decided on the delay because PolitiFact made a change, albeit via stealth edit, after the first correction request but made no apparent change after the second correction request. Under the assumption that submitting…
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The Brush-off On Oct. 3, 2018 Zebra Fact Check contacted PolitiFact to point out the need for a correction to a PolitiFact Missouri fact check from Sept. 20, 2018. Our message explained the correction was necessary because PolitiFact Missouri had rated “Mostly False” a claim PolitiFact had stated as true in 2013. PolitiFact gave Zebra Fact Check the brush-off. PolitiFact…
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On Nov. 27, 2017, the Washington Post published a story about a woman who pitched to it a false allegation about Republican senatorial candidate Roy Moore. The story associated the woman, identified as Jaime T. Phillips, to James O’Keefe’s Project Veritas. Project Veritas uses undercover sting operations to help expose liberal media bias. Who comes out ahead, the Post or…
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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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“(Sen. Bill) Jackson said there were more people killed with hammers than shotguns and pistols and AK-47s. There were actually 12 times as many people killed with handguns in 2011 than with blunt objects like hammers. Jackson’s claim is way off.” –PolitiFact Georgia, from “Gun claim goes awry,” Feb. 21, 2013 Overview PolitiFact conducted its fact check under the…
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We use the “true” icon when our analysis allows for the truth of a statement either based on an obvious interpretation or else a charitable interpretation. If the analysis applies a charitable interpretation to allow for the “true” rating then one of three icons representing charitable interpretation will accompany the “true” icon.
This post serves as a companion to a commentary post on the biased nature of expert opinion. What if we treated the batting order of the 2012 San Francisco Giants like the Brookings Institution treated five equal groups, or quintiles, of American taxpayers? Batting averages serve as a handy parallel. Most Americans are somewhat familiar with baseball. And the batting…
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