An independent experimental fact-checking site, exploring and advocating ways to make fact-checking better.
On Feb. 20, 2014, PolitiFact Oregon posted a new rating relating to the gender wage gap. PolitiFact Oregon rated it “Mostly True” that women in Oregon make 79 cents on the dollar compared to men for the same work. It was a notable rating, since other PolitiFact ratings on the gender wage gap, while not exactly a model of consistency,…
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A critical review of Lying in Politics: Evidence from the US, a working paper by Alessandro Bucciol and Luca Zarri Researchers Alessandro Bucciol (assistant professor of econometrics) and Luca Zarri (associate professor of economics), both of the University of Verona, wanted to examine the tendency of politicians to lie. But they were confronted the problem of objectively assessing whether and…
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“Barack Obama, in State of the Union, says women make 77 cents for every dollar a man earns … We rate the claim Mostly True.” —PolitiFact, from a Jan. 28 fact check of President Obama’s 2014 State of the Union speech Overview If the presidential State of the Union address is the Super Bowl for fact checkers then PolitiFact…
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How PolitiFact’s 2013 “Lie of the Year” selection was even worse than you thought It was Nov. 4, 2013, and insurance companies had already started to send cancellation notices to customers whose policies failed to meet the administration’s “essential benefits” standards under the Affordable Care Act. The media recognized the failure of the president’s pledge that Americans could keep the…
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“[T]he International Foundation of Employee Benefit Plans … found that about three-quarters of all employer-sponsored health plans already meet the criteria of the Affordable Care Act.” —PunditFact, Nov. 20, 2013 Overview PunditFact, the pundit-checking branch of PolitiFact, misuses a 2013 survey by the International Foundation of Employee Benefit Plans to help excuse insurance plan cancellations under the ACA. The…
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Fact checker “PolitiFact” spins its fact check failures on health care reform The media have rightly joined the public in criticizing President Obama’s veracity in claiming Americans could keep their health care plans if they liked them. And many have rightly criticized PolitiFact for turning a more-or-less blind eye on the president’s preposterous sales job. But PolitiFact isn’t taking this…
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A critical review of Jordan Humphreys’ “When Lies Matter: The Effect of Media Coverage of Misinformation on Public Opinion in the Health Care Reform Debate” Zebra Fact Check started in part to help express my concern about the state of high-quality information. The sources normally deemed worthy of trust, like journalists and academia, tend to have liberals in control. …
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“[Sen. Ted] Cruz said Obamacare has led to premiums going up and up and up for virtually every person.” —PolitiFact, Oct. 17, 2013 Overview PolitiFact provides a sterling example of settling on an improbable interpretation of a politician’s statement. The Facts On Oct. 17, 2013, mainstream fact checker PolitiFact examined a statement from Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas): “President…
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A skeptical treatment of Nyhan and Reifler’s latest study Readers should be aware I’ve referred to Brendan Nyhan as a “truth-hustler” in earlier writings. The team of Brendan Nyhan and Jason Reifler created yet another stir recently with their latest study of media effects, “The Effects of Fact Checking Threat.” Brendan Nyhan holds a post at Dartmouth College as assistant…
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“Clinton was right—63 percent of young Republicans, compared to only 45 percent of young Democrats had signed on to their parents’ plan, something they couldn’t have done without passage of Obama’s law.” —PolitiFact, Sept. 5, 2013 Overview PolitiFact grades the literal interpretation of a trivial claim “True,” and passes a stinker of an underlying argument off on its readers….
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