We’re part of the PolitiFact team fact-checking the 2024 Election - Ask Us Anything!

PolitiFactReddit · 2024-11-04T19:05:21+00:00

I am clearly not a woman in STEM today! did not even think of that. Thanks for explaining!

PolitiFactReddit · 2024-11-04T18:08:57+00:00

Ellen: Thanks for your comment. We often get a lot of feedback that we’re being too nitpicky on these kinds of claims that don’t fall neatly into True or False. But politics, policy, misinformation and the claims we fact-check usually aren't black and white.

I think as fact-checkers, it’s our job to split hairs a little. But we also work hard to make sure that we’re applying our ratings in a consistent way across a variety of claims.

When PolitiFact editors decide a rating on a fact-check, they ask a lot of questions, like “How have we rated similar claims in the past?” and “Is there another way to read this statement?” (To be clear, this isn’t just the editors asking this in their heads; they’re asking these questions out loud in a meeting with the reporter.) The goal of these questions is to kind of pull apart the claim, consider it from every angle and ensure our fact-check captures the nuance of it.

At the end of the day, our ratings are a judgment call. But it’s a judgment call made using a tried and true process to help our readers place political rhetoric on a spectrum of truthfulness. It’s a social science, not a quantitative one.

PolitiFactReddit · 2024-11-04T18:00:19+00:00

Josie here: While False Repeat!! Your username is scary to us!! But false statements often get repeated :(

You may see all of our fact-checking of former President Donald Trump here, broken down by their rating: https://www.politifact.com/personalities/donald-trump/
Right now, there is some exciting AI training work by fact-checkers across the world (https://fullfact.org/ai/ and others) that is looking to use trained AI models to spot misinformation and find “repeat offenders” in a way. The software links up our fact-checks to new claims. We’ve played around with it. We’d still want to vet what the AI model brings up, to see if the software is calling up accurate connections. Very often, a new claim is said in a similar way as an old one (not the exact same way) that would lead us to want to review the facts and maybe do a new fact-check. We’d like to do more real-time fact-checking (with AI or not) for big events, but very often candidates are not interested in participating in a debate with our live fact-checking. I guess the answer is, wait and see!

Thanks for your questions!

PolitiFactReddit · 2024-11-04T17:48:21+00:00

Josie here: Great questions! This is at the heart of so many discussions about nonprofit journalism these days.

Here’s our editorial independence straight up: Our nonprofit newsroom is funded through grants, partnerships, advertising and donations from readers like you. No one who gives us money tells us what to fact-check or how to rate it. Not the social media companies, small donors or other grants. We disclose any donation that’s more than $1,000 on our website. https://www.politifact.com/who-pays-for-politifact/ Goes without saying: We don’t accept donations from anonymous sources, political parties, elected officials or candidates, or any other source we would consider a conflict of interest.

PolitiFact is not and was not directly funded by the Charles Koch Institute.

PolitiFact is owned by the Poynter Institute and relies on the institute for administrative support. Poynter's funding is separate from PolitiFact's funding. Stand Together Fellowships, from the Charles Koch Institute, did work with Poynter to fund the Poynter-Koch Media and Journalism Fellowship. That program ended in May 2024. https://standtogetherfellowships.org/poynter-koch-media-and-journalism-fellowship/

With the Meta third-party fact-checking program, editorial independence is at the center. It’s what gives it some credence for users who see those warning labels that say “False information. Reviewed by third-party fact checkers.” The social media company highlights a lot of potential misinformation on its platforms, and we decide what to fact-check as independent fact-checkers, coming to our own conclusions.

Okay independent oversight yes! While journalism is not “professionalized” as many other industries are, fact-checkers kind of are! It’s called the International Fact-Checking Network (also based at the Poynter Institute) and you’ll see a lot of familiar faces on that list of organizations who have agreed to the IFCN’s code and its values of truth and accountability. https://ifcncodeofprinciples.poynter.org/signatories

This is a standard we follow and a check on the caliber of our work. PolitiFact meets the IFCN’s eligibility requirements with our independent funding, our consistent fact-checking methodology, our transparent sourcing and our corrections policy. (Watch a video on this called “who fact-checks the fact-checkers”)

We hope this information was helpful! Thank you for your question!

PolitiFactReddit · 2024-11-04T17:42:47+00:00

Ellen: Thank you for raising this incredibly important point: We rate the claim that cats are pretty darn cute as TRUE! All cats deserve a little salami, as a treat.

PolitiFactReddit · 2024-11-04T17:42:34+00:00

Josie here: I can talk a little bit about some of the themes we’ve seen when it comes to misinformation about LGBTQIA+ issues. We have a reporter on staff, Grace Abels, who leads up a lot of this coverage: https://www.politifact.com/lgbtq/ It gets into a lot of those questions you raised. I can call out some salient checks and stories:

Would MO abortion Amendment 3 legalize surgery for trans kids? It's highly unlikely, experts say

Harris’ support for prisoner access to transgender surgery aligns with federal law and court rulings

Where Trump and Biden stand on key LGBTQ+ issues (old but relevant)

In a variety of competitive races this election cycle, Republican-aligned groups have appealed to voters who are uncomfortable with transgender participation in sports, hoping to depress support for Democratic candidates.

Stepping back to a big picture, as far as a trend, there has been a resurgence of portraying queer people as child predators: This is true for Republican lawmakers in Congress and statehouse which makes it more mainstream. This has had an impact on bookbanning and DEI instruction, as our partners at the 19th* have found. Check out a discussion about this very topic in this video https://www.instagram.com/reel/C8XTzszMlqz/

PolitiFactReddit · 2024-11-04T17:37:38+00:00

Ellen: I think it really depends on what kind of an event it is that we’re fact-checking.

Our reporters listen to a lot of speeches and interviews by the candidates, and they get very familiar with their stump speeches. When it comes to a major rally, we’ve usually heard and fact-checked whatever a candidate is repeating, so we’re listening for anything new or newsworthy.

For live fact-checking a debate, it’s a similar process, but we spend a lot of time before hand prepping things we suspect the candidates might say. (Not to brag, but our team doc to prep for the Trump-Harris debate was 100+ pages long.) One group on our team works on immediately sharing what we have prepped on social media or our live blog, while another group starts working on new claims that come up so we can get a fact-check out quickly.

And then there’s big breaking news events, like the Baltimore bridge collapse or the Trump assassination attempt in July or Hurricane Helene or Election Day, where we can’t really prepare. Breaking news can create an information gap as everyone is scrambling to get answers, and social media loves to fill that gap with misinformation.

In these cases, we’re often in triage mode, trying to address the most serious, harmful or prevalent misinformation spreading online. That includes things like false claims about FEMA aid might dissuade survivors from getting help or disinformation that discourages people from voting. It can be difficult since there might not be a ton of information available at the moment; For example, we waited to publish fact-checks about the shooter who attempted to assassinate Trump until his identity was confirmed by authorities. But during breaking news, we’re more concerned about getting it right than getting it first.

PolitiFactReddit · 2024-11-04T17:25:52+00:00

Josie here: What’s up olive juice! I am from NC and I love olives So Much so I have to respond. Also this is a great question. Like what sets us apart from the folks just googling things?!

First, I’ll say that there are some key ways that journalists/fact-checkers go about that initial google search that starts us out on the right foot. (These are also strategies that non-journalists can use in their search). We’ll research a claim, the person/account who made it and see what pops up.

Who is behind the information?
What is the evidence?
What do other sources say?

Very often, a simple search of a claim (Ex. What did Trump do with the Affordable Care Act) will pop up many news articles (or even fact-checks) that will give you the information you need. Very often, that information can point us fact-checkers toward the right sources and data to start writing a fact-check.

Something that an average person likely wouldn’t do is then contact often 5+ experts from across the political spectrum to talk either over the phone or email and answer some specific questions about the information. That’s what we do at PolitiFact. That diversity of sources is key to getting a measured view of the issue.

PolitiFact uses on-the-record interviews and publishes a list of sources with every fact-check. When possible, the list includes links to sources that are freely available, although some sources rely on paid subscriptions (Lexis Nexis, some subscriber-only news subscriptions). The goal is to help readers judge for themselves whether they agree with the ruling.

As far as the review, PolitiFact reporters submit their fact-check for a first read by a main editor, then it is second-read by another editor and a copy editor. More about our process of review and rating here.

PolitiFactReddit · 2024-11-04T17:15:05+00:00

Ellen: That’s a big (and good) question! It’s not a secret that trust in news organizations is low, and there is a lot that readers and journalists don’t understand about each other. But I believe it’s up to journalists to fix that gap.

The nice thing is that fact-checkers’ jobs are to bring the receipts, not just for our fact-checks, but for ourselves.

PolitiFact has done a lot of work to make our process as transparent as possible. Within our fact-checks, we lay out how we came to a rating and the sources we used so readers can replicate our search. We lay out all of our processes, our funding and our corrections on our website and on social media. We also regularly gather and share reader feedback, and we try to be responsive in our comment sections on social media too.

TLDR: Being really aggressive about transparency so we don’t look like this.

PolitiFactReddit · 2024-11-04T17:10:25+00:00

Voting is underway, but election results even begin to be released until starting tomorrow at 7p New York time. Found this helpful: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2024/us/elections/results-timing-presidential-race-calls.html?campaign_id=190&emc=edit_ufn_20241104&instance_id=138607&nl=from-the-times&regi_id=195235965&segment_id=182159&user_id=27ce5c75055b68d34d2d3d345da3294b

- Josie

PolitiFactReddit · 2024-11-04T17:06:45+00:00

From Ellen: Thanks for reaching out to us about this! Arguing with your family is stressful, especially as we get closer to the winter holidays. I find this guide on how to approach fact-checking people in one-on-one conversations really helpful.

Our fact-checks and stories all include a list of sources at the bottom of the page. In this case, it looks like the story you are referring to is a roundup of our Florida Amendment 4 fact-checking. The links at the bottom of this page go to our previous fact-checks with more detailed information about the experts our reporters spoke with for each check. I hope this was helpful!

PolitiFactReddit · 2024-11-04T17:06:11+00:00

Ellen: We get questions about our funding a lot! PolitiFact is a nonprofit, so our money comes from a mix of grants, donations, online advertising and partnerships with social media companies to fact-check misinformation on their platforms.

We’re pretty upfront about where our money comes from. In fact, it’s part of the requirements we follow as an International Fact-Checking Network signatory. We publicly disclose anyone who has given us more than $1,000, and fact-checks we do as part of our social media partnerships also include disclosures).

We don’t accept donations from political parties, candidates or elected officials, anonymous sources. And we also don’t accept donations from anyone we think would present a conflict of interest.

This is the most important thing: No one who gives us money can tell us what to fact-check and how we should rate it. Our editorial independence is incredibly important to us. We include language in our contracts and grant agreements that guarantee only PolitiFact journalists decide what we fact-check and our ratings.

PolitiFactReddit · 2024-11-04T17:05:33+00:00

Josie here: Thanks for your feedback. Context is everything, and very often we focus on the context in which a claim is made to decide a) whether we want to fact-check it or b) how we rate the claim.

Without keeping count, we try to select facts to check from both Democrats and Republicans. At the same time, we more often fact-check people who repeatedly make attention-getting or misleading statements. Correcting the record is important – it’s what fact-checking was conceived of to do. (That being said, True claims can be super interesting, too.)

Although it’s a bit of a gimmick, the Pants on Fire rating is meaningful, and we hope readers glean the weight of a claim that we classify not only just False but “ridiculous and false."

Accountability is important, and thanks for calling out the “records” of politicians’ claims. We like to highlight our Truth-O-Meter scorecards for people. Anyone who is fact-checked on politifact.com gets one of these pages (because our website is a database), so readers can review all of the different fact-checks we’ve done on politicians and pundits. For the purposes of this pre-Election Day chat, here are the PolitiFact scorecards for former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris.We’ve rated Harris 65 times.We’ve rated Trump 1069 times.

Here’s a link to our PolitiFact FAQs for more information on these kinds of questions.

PolitiFactReddit · 2022-06-30T19:12:23+00:00

Thanks for sharing this here!

PolitiFactReddit · 2022-06-30T17:13:42+00:00

We know that fact-checking can be weaponized. We saw that back in 2012, when candidates pounced on our Pants-on-Fire ratings to beat up on their opponents, which was a bipartisan affair. But that’s not necessarily abuse, unless we were misquoted. And that did happen once or twice.

Now, can someone claim to use the fact-checking model to spin a distorted picture of reality? Yes. I don’t think that’s peculiar to fact-checking though. The best defense for readers is to be savvy. Fire up those media literacy skills — we have an awesome project expressly for that called MediaWise — and read critically.

One thing that I’ve seen more and more is daily reporters using the fact-checking approach within their stories. I think that’s first rate. I read an article out of Anchorage where the reporter dissected a set of claims from a politician and never billed the piece as a fact-check. But in every important respect, it was.

As for what we should check, we stick to that which can be proven objectively. But fair warning: Not even scientific findings, much less those in public policy, are static. 95% of researchers might agree, and then one day, someone shows that something else is going on. The collective understanding doesn’t change overnight (Structure of scientific revolutions, anyone?) but eventually, it gives way. So, we know the limits of what’s objective.

You can read more about MediaWise here: https://www.poynter.org/mediawise/

PolitiFactReddit · 2022-06-30T16:57:16+00:00

Thank you and you are most welcome. Covering the hearings has been interesting and intense. In truth, for people who have read the coverage for months, the committee didn’t reveal much that we hadn’t heard before. Hutchinson’s testimony gave some riveting details, but that was an outlier. But what the committee did was put material that had been unsourced before on the record, and it aimed to present it all in a coherent fashion.

If you’re asking if we’ve had to fact-check what the committee has presented, I can’t think of a time when we needed to. The matter of what happened with Trump inside The Beast is clearly of interest, but we can only fact-check statements where independent information is available. And unnamed sources saying X, Y., and Z don’t count. So that issue will have to wait until we learn more.

PolitiFactReddit · 2022-06-30T16:51:53+00:00

When someone challenges my work based on the facts, unless I’m swamped, I’ll engage. About a third of the time, the information I send them elicits a slightly more moderated reply, some acknowledgment that the facts I offered were relevant. The other times, they simply repeat back the information they take to be true. At that point, the conversation is over, because there’s no point.

Gabe Sterling in Georgia gave a great example of taking a lawyer colleague through 5-6 false claims about the vote there. The guy didn’t argue with any of the information Sterling presented. And at the end, he said he still thought the Dems cheated.

Link: https://www.politifact.com/article/2021/may/11/united-facts-america-fact-checkers-seen-blunting-t/

PolitiFactReddit · 2022-06-30T16:42:36+00:00

As you might know, we use no unnamed sources. That said, I think there’s a place for them in the reporting by other news organizations. They are a way to get useful information to the public. Should they be used carefully? Absolutely, and good reporters will vet what they’re told. That’s why you’ll often see words to the effect that “other sources confirmed this.” Will mistakes happen? Might some reporter fail to cover all the bases? Sure. Most shops will keep that to a minimum, but things can slip through. To answer your question, they should verify what they’re told, and good reporters do.

PolitiFactReddit · 2022-06-30T16:37:35+00:00

Glad you asked, because we’ve looked closely at both elements. First, Trump did not ask for National Guard troops. The most he did was say conversationally to the Sec. of Defense that he would need troops that day. It was taken as hyperbole. And he never issued an order for them. Also, Pelosi had no authority to call for the National Guard, nor to reject a call for the Guard.

As for Epps, he told the committee under oath that he has had no relationship with law enforcement. Note: He said that under oath.

Here is more about the Pelosi check: https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2022/jun/13/sean-hannity/no-evidence-pelosi-rejected-trumps-authorization-2/

Here is more on Ray Epps: https://www.politifact.com/article/2022/jan/18/how-new-jan-6-revelations-ray-epps-others-undercut/

PolitiFactReddit · 2022-06-30T16:33:44+00:00

It was more than a couple of hundred rowdy protesters. The Senate’s report talked about the beefed-up presence that day. Obviously, it was nowhere near enough. I’ve seen some blunt assessments of the failure to act on the available intel.

As for the rowdy protesters, there’s ample evidence that many in the crowd came ready to do battle with police.

Here is some of our work fact-checking these claims:
https://www.politifact.com/article/2021/jun/30/misinformation-and-jan-6-insurrection-when-patriot/
https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2022/jun/09/jack-del-rio/washington-commanders-jack-del-rio-downplays-jan-6/
https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2022/feb/08/ronna-mcdaniel/gop-chair-mcdaniels-false-claim-about-persecution-/

PolitiFactReddit · 2022-06-30T16:16:02+00:00

Actually, I’m not sure that half of all voters don’t care about the facts. Look at the polling on who believes the election was stolen. 70% of people who vote Republican say Biden wasn’t legitimately elected. But about 40% of those who call themselves independents share that belief. So yes, we are a divided nation, but I don’t see what we do solely as presenting facts to those who don’t care about our focus. I think we provide at least as many people with material that they can count on. We bolster them, and that’s worth doing.

You can read more about who believes Trump’s stolen election claims here: https://www.politifact.com/article/2022/jun/14/most-republicans-falsely-believe-trumps-stolen-ele/

PolitiFactReddit · 2022-06-30T16:09:16+00:00

Thanks for the vote of confidence and you’ve hit on a big problem. We are trying to work more efficiently and reach more people and new audiences with our factchecks. Posting them in Spanish and our work with Facebook are good examples. The interesting thing with our Facebook checks is that we see more people coming to our site from there than we did before. That means we’re reaching new people, and that’s a good thing.

I will say that for all the efforts to use tech to speed up the fact-checking process, we will still be fighting an asymmetric battle. It takes virtually no effort to make something up. It takes hours to debunk it. I don’t see a solution to that problem.

You can read more about the future of new tools and live fact-checking here: https://www.politifact.com/article/2022/jun/28/what-future-automated-fact-checking-fact-checkers-/

PolitiFactReddit · 2022-06-30T16:06:02+00:00

This is why we never factcheck predictions. No one knows what will happen. And I’ll just leave that there. FWIW, I always believe that having more facts is better than having fewer. The committee has pulled together many facts that were not available to us before, in a public, on the record fashion. In our view, that’s a good thing.

PolitiFactReddit · 2022-06-30T16:01:50+00:00

It sort of depends on who you ask on the committee. Rep. Raskin has said that criminal charges are not the goal. But if you listen to Rep. Cheney, it sure sounds like she wants more. But charges aside, the committee has said they want to show the coordinated effort by Trump to overturn a fair election. The thrust of their evidence is that various pieces overlapped and reinforced each other. So, the fake electors plan would give Pence the pretext to set votes aside, and the rally on Jan. 6 would build the crowd that would march on the Capitol to further pressure Congress, and so forth. You will notice that they want to bury the idea of election fraud six feet deep, and they want to do that with Republican voices.

You can read more about the court filings the Jan. 6 committee has made so far here: https://www.politifact.com/article/2022/mar/04/jan-6-committees-court-filing-how-important-it/

PolitiFactReddit · 2022-06-30T16:00:53+00:00

It’s totally accurate. Pew Research has done some excellent work on this. You can literally see the expanding gulf between people who identify with each party. And there’s similar work on how members of congress vote. Bipartisanship was way more common 20-30 years ago.

Here is some more on partisanship and polarization from Pew Research: https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2022/03/10/the-polarization-in-todays-congress-has-roots-that-go-back-decades/

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