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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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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.
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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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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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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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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On Feb. 19, 2019 Zebra Fact Check sent an email to PolitiFact alerting it to a highly misleading paragraph in its article explaining Sen. Bernie Sanders’ Medicare For All proposal. The text of the message follows in .pdf format:
In January 2019 (likely Jan. 23, 2019 based on its edit history) we sent a complaint to the International Fact-Checking Network regarding PolitiFact’s failure to adhere to an open and honest corrections policy. The message detailed PolitiFact’s failure to support its conclusion that President Trump had contradicted himself on the subject of Mexico paying by check for the proposed U.S….
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On Jan. 16, 2019, Zebra Fact Check sent an email to PolitiFact alerting the IFCN-certified fact checkers that their fact check of President Trump on Jan 10, 2019 (our email incorrectly says 2018) failed to produce adequate evidence of an alleged contradiction. As of Sept. 15, 2019 we could detect no action on PolitiFact’s part to explain or correct the…
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On October 5, 2018 we submitted a complaint through the IFCN noting PolitiFact Missouri’s ruling on a claim from Republican Josh Hawley unduly ignored the precision of Hawley’s statement. This complaint differs from most of the others in that PolitiFact sent a response. It is worth noting that we specifically requested a response in this case. It is also worth…
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