Tag Archive: PolitiFact

Correction requests sent to Slate, Feb. 5, Feb. 6, and Feb. 22, 2024

Zebra Fact Check logo

Slate published false information from interviewee and PolitiFact employee Louis Jacobson in a Feb. 1, 2024 article. We sent two correction requests which Slate appeared to initially heed. But Slate changed its update in a misleading way, so we sent a third correction request on Feb. 22, 2024. That request, unfortunately, has a mistake on our part. One of our…
Read more

PolitiFact stands pat with misleading Bush v. Gore narrative

PolitiFact published an explainer of the Trump ballot removal case before the Supreme Court. The Feb. 8, 2024 article had what we consider an ambiguous description of the Supreme Court case Bush v. Gore from 2000: The last time the Supreme Court played such a pivotal role in the presidential race was in 2000, when the justices ruled 5-4 to…
Read more

What is a “small error” at PolitiFact?

Jeff D, the co-creator of the “PolitiFact Bias” website, and I have often joked that PolitiFact’s principles are more like guidelines than actual rules. That’s a reference to a classic line from Disney’s “Pirates of the Caribbean,” about the so-called “pirate’s code.” And so it is with PolitiFact’s principles. PolitiFact’s corrections policy offers it an easy out from its responsibility…
Read more

Complaint about PolitiFact sent to the International Fact-Checking Network, Jan. 26, 2018 (Update: oops, duplicate)

Zebra Fact Check logo

We’ve been slow (Editor’s note 12/28/2023: Not as slow as we thought! We already posted this documentation in Oct. 2023) to document our first complaint submitted to the International Fact-Checking Network regarding PolitiFact. That’s partly because we tried to ensure that IFCN figures were clear that our emails were seeking publishable responses. It’s acceptable in journalism to publish anything received…
Read more

Complaint filed with the International Fact-Checking Network about PolitiFact, April 4, 2018

Zebra Fact Check logo

Back in early 2018 the International Fact-Checking Network had yet to develop a working complaint submission interface. We filed our earliest complaints via email. For this example the first email points out to PolitiFact its inconsistency on spending cuts to future budgets. That March 29, 2018 email (documented at this website here) gets forwarded to the IFCN to serve as…
Read more

Correction request sent to PolitiFact, Oct. 6, 2023

Zebra Fact Check logo

Zebra Fact Check noted that a PolitiFact fact check created a false narrative around Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, suggesting that DeSantis conflated one statistic with another when speaking about illegal immigration. PolitiFact failed to acknowledge that border apprehensions have a long history as a proxy for illegal border crossings. PolitiFact also failed to acknowledge that border apprehensions do not…
Read more

The battle to nudge the International Fact-Checking Network toward transparency and accountability

Zebra Fact Check logo

As we have noted in past posts, Zebra Fact Check has moved to focus more on fact-checking accountability than on doing our own program of fact-checking. Of course this altered focus affords many opportunities to check facts. As it stands, there exists no entity dedicated to holding fact-checkers accountable. The International Fact-Checking Network advertises itself in that role, but that…
Read more