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We sent a correction request to PolitiFact on April 11, 2024. As it contained an error, we sent a follow-up message a few minutes later to acknowledge and correct the mistake. We include both messages here.
Is Donald Trump the least accurate politician PolitiFact has ever fact-checked? PolitiFact has said so, even publishing an article devoted to the idea. But Zebra Fact Check showed the fact checkers don’t have the data to back the claim. Some other politicians have equal or perhaps better claims to the title, ignoring for the sake of argument that “Truth-O-Meter” ratings…
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Zebra Fact Check sent Slate unequivocal evidence that its updated reporting on Donald Trump’s “Truth-O-Meter” record still contained falsehoods.
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…
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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…
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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…
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Fact checkers at PolitiFact North Carolina failed to exercise due diligence in answering whether any Gaza protesters on a Durham highway were arrested. Accordingly we asked PolitiFact for corrections. We received PolitiFact’s standard response in reply.
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…
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PolitiFact mishandled a fact check of Florida Governor Ron DeSantis touching illegal border crossings and ignored a correction request. Accordingly, Zebra Fact Check submitted a formal complaint to the International Fact-Checking Network.
Our first formal complaint about PolitiFact to the International Fact-Checking Network was submitted via email on Jan. 26, 2018.