An independent experimental fact-checking site, exploring and advocating ways to make fact-checking better.
We sent the following message to Professor Darius Rejali on May 25, 2016. Dear Professor Darius Rejali, I’m a fact-checking journalist working on the issue of torture. Specifically, whether torture works. I’m writing to you because PolitiFact has cited statements from you saying that torturers do not know when tortured prisoners are telling the truth (PolitiFact uses that as an…
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Quote Check: Attributed to former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger: “Depopulation should be the highest priority of foreign policy towards the third world, because the US economy will require large and increasing amounts of minerals from abroad, especially from less developed countries.” Overview We found no good evidence to support attributing the above quotation to Kissinger. The Facts…
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On Jan. 4, 2016, we sent the following message to PolitiFact Missouri writer Adam Aton. Though we included editor Mike Jenner in the salutation, we neglected to list Jenner as a recipient. Dear Mr. Adam Aton, Mr. Mike Jenner I’m a fact-checking journalist preparing an evaluation of PolitiFact MIssouri’s fact check of Will Kraus. Your fact check faults Kraus for asserting…
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Will Kraus “Says Missouri needs a voter I.D. law because ‘there’s over 16 people in the state of Missouri who have been convicted of some type of voter fraud.’” —PolitiFact Missouri Overview We don’t see the evidence supporting PolitiFact Missouri’s interpretation of Kraus’ remarks. We judge PolitiFact Missouri ruled “Half True” on a distorted version of Kraus’ claim. The…
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Email interview questions posed to PolitiFact writer Linda Qiu and PolitiFact editor Angie Drobnic Holan through their published email addresses. Note neither replied to the messages, which is common with PolitiFact staffers. If we receive any reply on this subject we will add the reply to this page. Nov. 5, 2015: Dear Linda Qiu, Angie Drobnic Holan, The Facebook version…
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Last week I posted in reply to Politico’s Jack Shafer, who suggested in an article that Trump supporters don’t care if Trump does not tell the truth. We responded with a post suggesting Trump supporters have reason to distrust fact checkers such as PolitiFact. We tagged Shafer in a tweet highlighting our reply and Shafer retweeted it. Meanwhile Michelle A….
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In a Dec. 24, 2015 column, Politico’s Jack Shafer wonders why the mainstream media fact checkers have no discernible effect on the presidential race. Republican Donald Trump, for example, pays them about the same heed Godzilla pays the Japanese Air Force. Shafer writes: It would stand to reason that the documentation of Trump’s lies—not to mention his rudeness and crudeness—would…
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Back in May 2015 PolitiFact, specifically PolitiFact Florida, published an amazingly incompetent fact check. PolitiFact Florida’s fact check looked at whether Republican presidential candidate Marco Rubio was right that the United States is not building aircraft, aircraft carriers and submarines. PolitiFact Florida said it found plenty of evidence the United States was building aircraft, aircraft carriers and submarines, rating Rubio’s…
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We sought the opinion of Zbiegniew Mazurak on defense issues. Mazurak’s “About Me” page says “I’m a defense analyst with 6 years of experience in the field, specializing in the defense budget, nuclear weapons strategy, and missile defense.” We wanted to see how Mazurak would approach the fact check issue without our leading toward a particular angle. As a follow…
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There’s a heretofore unexplained gap in the output at Zebra Fact Check running from July through October of 2015. I was hired by a non-profit, non-partisan organization to work on a new fact-checking project. Ballotpedia’s Verbatim project launched in October 2015 and we parted amicably shortly after that. I plan to write a review of Verbatim in 2016 as it…
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