Fact-checking fact-checkers

The CEO of disgruntled leftist fact-checker Snopes — yeah, the same website that got raked over the coals for fact-checking satire site The Babylon Bee — had the chutzpah to excuse away the truth-gatekeeping industry’s notorious, censorial treatment of the Hunter Biden laptop story.

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s announcement about the supposed return of unfettered free speech on his platforms was cynically reported in the lead story slot on Wednesday by New York Times tech reporter Mike Isaac and Theodore Schleifer, who covers “billionaires” (though perhaps not leftist billionaire George Soros, given that criticism of him is posed as anti-Semitic).

After Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced the company will be dumping its partnership with fact-checking companies in favor of a X-like community notes-style method of combating misinformation, PolitiFact tried to fearmonger about such a move. Unfortunately for writer …

It is a common retort among those who argue in favor of an “independent” fact-checking industry that Republicans and conservatives are fact-checked more because they lie more. However, anyone who reads beyond the headlines will soon see this is nonsense. Over the past year, the fact-checkers have come out with some “fact” checks that are themselves factually challenged. Here are the worst ten…

PolitiFact co-founder Bill Adair is still doing liberal-media interviews for his book on why Republicans lie more. He admitted to a public-radio host that the "Truth-O-Meter" is an imprecise, subjective measurement. Everything about the "independent fact-checkers" is loaded with partisan opinion.

It is odd that a website that fancies itself as a fact-checking organization would believe that if you repeat a falsehood enough times it eventually becomes true, but that is what PolitiFact is doing with Democrats and transgender sports. In a Thursday article, PolitiFact defended Montana Sen. Jon Tester’s vote that failed to protect the competitive integrity of women’s sports by claiming such…

Republicans clearly believe that transgender-related liberal culture war nonsense is a winning issue for them, which means that PolitiFact views it as their job to defend Democrats from the true attacks on their record. On Tuesday, PolitiFact was it again, rating Nevada Republican Senate challenger Sam Brown “false” for correctly stating Sen. Jacky Rosen supports allowing men to compete in…

CNN Newsroom host Jim Acosta and fact-checker Daniel Dale white knighted for Kamala Harris on Tuesday as the pair reacted to a Donald Trump forum where Trump called Harris a “Marxist” and “lazy as hell.” Acosta thought such comments were “incoherent,” while Dale claimed they proved that the two candidates cannot be credibly viewed as equally truthful.

Bill Adair, Duke University journalism professor and founder of the “fact-checking” site PolitiFact, indulged his warped scales with a sympathetic host on tax-funded PBS, sending out a fair-and-balanced message: Republicans love to lie! Adair: "[Democrats] feel shame in ways that I'm afraid too many politicians on the right do not…."

PolitiFact is at it again. For the second day in a row, the website has condemned Senate Republicans’ Senate Leadership Fund for an attack ad against Ohio Sen. Sherrod Brown. On Thursday, they twisted themselves into a rhetorical pretzel as they rated the PAC “false” for claiming Brown supports men being able to compete in women’s sports, and on Friday they did it again, claiming it is “mostly…

The Senate GOP's The Senate Leadership Fund recently released an ad condemning Ohio Sen. Sherrod Brown for voting to allow men to compete in women’s sports. On Thursday, PolitiFact slapped a “false” label on the claim, but it had to allow Brown to have it both ways multiple times to do so.

In a NewsBusters analysis of six months of Politifact articles (April to September) that evaluated a named politician or public official with a “Truth-O-Meter” ruling reveals that PolitiFact is profoundly tilted against the GOP:  

If journalism professor and PolitiFact founder Bill Adair meant to increase faith in the fact-checking industry with his appearance on Comedy Central’s The Daily Show, he failed miserably. Adair told host Jon Stewart on Monday that the reason why Republicans get fact-checked more is because “lying... has just become a culture” in conservative circles.

After Tuesday’s vice presidential debate between Republican JD Vance and Democrat Tim Walz, PolitiFact was at it again, rating Vance false 91 percent of the time and Walz false 29 percent of the time. While defenders of professional fact-checking may say, “Aha, that proves Vance lies more,” there were problems with PolitiFact’s assessments of both candidates.