Email outreach to PolitiFact, May 3, 2019
On May 3, 2019 Zebra Fact Check requested a correction from PolitiFact on a 2011 “Obameter” story. The text of that message follows in .pdf format.
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Complaint to the International Fact-Checking Network regarding PolitiFact, May 3, 2019
On May 3, 2019 Zebra Fact Check sent a complaint about PolitiFact to the International Fact-Checking Network. That complaint follows in .pdf format. Correction Sept. 28, 2019: When published, this item said the complaint from Zebra Fact Check was sent on April 3, 2019. That date was wrong. We replaced the incorrect date with the correct date, May 3, 2019….
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Email Outreach to PolitiFact, April 25, 2019
On April 24, 2019 PolitiFact published a fact check of a claim by Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders. The fact check ignored a false statement from Sanders and in its conclusion falsely claimed it true that the Vermont Constitution only places one restriction on voters (being of “quiet and peaceable behavior”). Zebra Fact Check sent an email message to PolitiFact…
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Email Outreach to PolitiFact, April 16, 2019
On April 10, 2019, PolitiFact’s PunditFact published a fact check of conservative political activist Candace Owens. Owens said it was a myth that the Democratic and Republican parties switched. PunditFact called Owens’ claim “False.’ We noticed problems with the PunditFact fact check and sent an email seeking corrective measures. That message follows in .pdf form. To date, we have received…
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Complaint to the International Fact-Checking Network regarding PolitiFact, April 2019
In April 2019 Zebra Fact Check sent a complaint to the International Fact-Checking Network about PolitiFact’s failure to correct an obviously botched 2014 ruling from PolitiFact Oregon.
Email Outreach to PolitiFact, March 9, 2019
Back in 2014 we noticed a wildly out-of-step gender pay gap story at PolitiFact Oregon. We (Bryan, writing for the PolitiFact Bias blog) wrote about it at the time and fruitlessly emailed a correction request to the story’s author. With the passage of time and the International Fact-Checking Network’s nods toward fact checker accountability, we decided to again try to…
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Email Outreach to PolitiFact, March 2019
After finding multiple problems with a PolitiFact Virginia fact check of Democrat Bobby Scott, Zebra Fact Check sent a message to PolitiFact intended to draw attention to the problems. After sending the first message we noted PolitiFact Virginia made some changes to the fact check. So we sent a second message to PolitiFact highlighting the lingering concerns. The messages to…
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Poor Measures of Fact Checker Bias
After Sen. Ted Cruz needled mainstream fact-checker PolitiFact by calling it “a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Democratic Party,” PolitiFact responded with a hilariously tone-deaf article PolitiSplaining why it was not, in fact, a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Democratic Party. The conservative media criticism site Newsbusters piled on with an article intended to show PolitiFact’s partiality to the political left. But…
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Email exchange with Warren Fiske (PolitiFact Virginia), with notes
In March of 2019 we noticed some discrepancies in a gender wage gap article by Warren Fiske of PolitiFact Virginia. We sent messages asking about the discrepancies and received replies from Fiske. Notably, PolitiFact did make at least three changes to its story in apparent response to our messages. The email exchange occurs below, excluding some extra messages stemming from…
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Complaint to the IFCN regarding PolitiFact, Feb. 26, 2019
On Feb. 26, 2019 Zebra Fact Check sent a message to the International Fact-Checking Network detailing PolitiFact’s failure to adhere to an open and honest policy on corrections. Our use of an apostrophe in the filename for our .pdf may have delayed IFCN’s receipt of the message, but it was eventually received (we resubmitted the file with a new name…
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