An independent experimental fact-checking site, exploring and advocating ways to make fact-checking better.
“They asked about 2,000 K-12 teachers who reported in large part that they were seeing an increase in bullying, especially among immigrants, children of immigrants and Muslim students.” —PolitiFact Senior Writer Lauren Carroll, during an Aug. 27, 2016 appearance on MSNBC Live. Overview Fact-checker Lauren Carroll passed along false information to the MSNBC audience, reproducing and magnifying errors from…
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On Aug. 26, 2016, mainstream fact checker PolitiFact published a spectacularly awful examination of Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton’s claim that teachers were reporting a “Trump Effect” in schools involving an increase in harassment and bullying of some minority groups. PolitiFact relied for its evidence on an extremely flawed survey from the left-leaning Southern Poverty Law Center. PolitiFact also…
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There’s no solid evidence that waterboarding works. https://t.co/rWBEn8n9r2 — Bill Adair (@BillAdairDuke) May 24, 2016 Bill Adair, Duke University’s Knight professor of computational journalism, helped found PolitiFact. That likely helps explain his “Truth-O-Meter”-ish Twitter avatar. Adair’s tweet about waterboarding helps show the way mainstream fact checkers help reinforce false partisan beliefs, in this case the popular narrative that torture…
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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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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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Near the tail end of November 2015 somebody shared with me a link to an NPR story about a new study looking at the lexical features of political lying, “Researchers Examine How to Spot a Lying Politician“: SHANKAR VEDANTAM, BYLINE: Well, Steve, this is research by social scientists who are doing what social scientists do, which is they look for…
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“[Becky] Quick’s math is sound, based on what’s publicly known about Carson’s plan. Carson’s 15 percent flat tax would generate a $1.1 trillion hole. By his own math, his plan would create a $1 trillion hole.” —PolitiFact, from a Nov. 4, 2015 fact check of GOP presidential contender Ben Carson Overview PolitiFact’s omissions and misrepresentations leave behind a misleading…
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In recent months we’ve pored over a pair of scholarly works on the topic of fact-checking. One, Checking the Fact-checkers in 2008: Predicting Political Ad Scrutiny and Assessing Consistency by Michele A. Amazeen, we reviewed earlier this year. The second, a doctoral dissertation by former PolitiFact writer Lucas Graves, contains much material we’ll address in one way or another over…
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Trey Gowdy vs. PolitiFact “Gowdy has a point that he’s still waiting on quite a few documents, but it goes too far to say he hasn’t received a “single, solitary scrap of paper.” We rate his claim Mostly False.” —PolitiFact, from a May 21, 2015 fact check of Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.). Overview PolitiFact takes Rep. Gowdy out of…
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“Sanders said that “in this last election in November, … 63 percent of the American people chose not to vote, … 80 percent of young people, (and) 75 percent of low-income workers chose not to vote.” … We rate the claim Half True.” —PolitiFact, from an April 2, 2015 fact check of Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) Overview PolitiFact burns…
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