Plain Dealer and St. Petersburg Times partner to create PolitiFact Ohio
The fact checker in me was happy to read the following from the Cleveland Plain Dealer – (link):
Starting today, The Plain Dealer officially kicks off PolitiFact Ohio, a new way to examine the claims, ads and statements of players in the political world. Once distilled, the newspaper’s findings are posted on the fanciful Truth-O-Meter, whose ratings are True, Mostly True, Half True, Barely True and False. There’s a special rating for claims that are downright ridiculous: Pants on Fire.
PolitiFact Ohio does not replace The Plain Dealer’s traditional coverage of public affairs but, rather, supplements it. The newspaper is building on a model designed by the St. Petersburg Times, a Florida newspaper whose truth-squad initiative led it to create PolitiFact in 2007. PolitiFact’s work during the 2008 presidential election led to a Pulitzer Prize for national reporting, with Pulitzer judges praising PolitiFact’s commitment to “separating rhetoric from truth to enlighten voters.”
The Plain Dealer and St. Petersburg Times are partners in PolitiFact Ohio, with the Cleveland-based newspaper providing the reporting and editing staff while building on the Florida newspaper’s model and Web infrastructure. Bill Adair, PolitiFact creator and Washington bureau chief of the St. Petersburg Times, came to Cleveland to train Plain Dealer staff earlier this month.This is the latest in a growing group of PolitiFact partnerships, composed of PolitiFact Florida (with the Miami Herald), PolitiFact Texas (with the Austin American-Statesman), PolitiFact Georgia (with the Atlanta Journal Constitution), and PolitiFact Rhode Island (with the Providence Journal). PolitiFact also is partnering with National Public Radio to fact-check political ads in the 2010 campaign. And ABC News enlisted PolitiFact to fact-check the guests and pundits who appear on “This Week,” the Sunday morning program.
Of special interest given the citation of Rep. Boehner’s claims on federal funding being used for abortion has been used here on the blog – (link) that received a False rating from Politifact Ohio…
This has the potential of creating an enhanced level of truth and transparency to Ohio politics – so welcome – Politifact Ohio….
I certainly hope that PoltiFact Ohio tracks local politics in Toledo/Lucas County. How refreshing it will be to hear unvarnished facts.
July 25th, 2010 at 9:31 pmNow, why am I skeptical about this? It was never in the best interests of newspapers to perform an objective fact-checking before. Editors always made sure the news was slanted and cherry-picked in order to support the paper’s largely imperial ideology. Are newspapers now so desperate for readers that they are moving onward to another gimmick? Or are they equally desperate so that they are falling back upon doing their gosh-darned, as-designed jobs?
July 25th, 2010 at 10:11 pmPolitifact is well established, if Cleveland follows the model, which they are saying they are and they so far are providing their documentation it will be a great tool for transparency.
Many journalists and bloggers focus on the facts…
July 25th, 2010 at 10:16 pmThe Plain Dealer and St. Petersburg Times are both very left-wing newspapers. I hope this ideology is disconnected from Politifact.
July 26th, 2010 at 10:06 amYes Patrick, because as Stephen Colbert says -”Reality has a well-known liberal bias.”
July 26th, 2010 at 10:20 amThanks for the link.
July 26th, 2010 at 2:15 pm