Fact-checking fact-checkers

According to NBC News, a “landmark study” by 27 “academic researchers” has concluded that conservatives in America are far more likely than their left-wing counterparts to consume news from untrustworthy sources. We’re all supposed to take this immensely seriously, but even a cursory look at the study reveals a host of embarrassing problems with the methodology.

Grace Abels, “a staff writer focused on LGBTQ issues,” for PolitiFact came out with an explainer piece on Friday that sought to defend the practice of “chestfeeding” for “people who identify as men or as nonbinary.” Seriously, this is a fact-checking outlet.

PolitiFact waded into the controversy surrounding Florida’s new history standards by rating Vice President Kamala Harris “mostly true” for her statement that the state is teaching “enslaved people benefited from slavery.” To reach such a conclusion the trio of Sofia Bliss-Carrascosa, Louis Jacobson, and Amy Sherman had to tie themselves into a giant pretzel by simply downplaying evidence…

Vice President Kamala Harris committed another gaffe on Friday. But LeadStories.com -- an important "independent fact-checker" that Facebook uses to crush "misinformation" openly claimed that Harris "Did NOT Suggest" what she obviously suggested.

The liberals at PolitiFact flagged Fox News as "False" on July 11 as it sought to defend the "banned" book Gender Queer by Maia Kobabe. Fox made an error, reporting the National Education Association promoted the graphically sexual book to kids, when they were promoting it as summer reading for teachers.

CNN Tonight host Alisyn Camerota tried and failed to fact-check an ad featuring Casey DeSantis where she touted her husband Ron’s record of banning “child mutilation.” As Camerota tells it, DeSantis’s team admits they have no proof of such events ever happening, but that is not true.

The problem with fact-checkers is not that checking facts is useless, but that their status as guardians of the truth is not justified. When OceanGate’s mini-sub went missing near the wreck of Titanic, some critics of Elon Musk used the opportunity to score political points by promoting his Twitter competitors by declaring that his company Starlink was being utilized for…

PolitiFact supported President Biden as "Mostly True" on Friday for his comments at a "Pride" celebration at the White House on June 10. Pushing the so-called "Equality Act," Biden said "When a person can be married in the morning and thrown out of a restaurant for being gay in the afternoon, something is still very wrong in America,"

On June 9, the intrepid fact-checkers at Snopes decided that the anti-Catholic Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence is not a hate group. Why? Because they themselves say so and the left-wing Southern Poverty Law Center does not list them as such.

PolitiFact has shown no hesitation when it comes to rating conservative claims about Target false, but when it came to a recent true claim from The Daily Wire and Fox News, about Target funding GLSEN, an activist group that favors concealing child transitions from parents, author Madison Czopek declined to give them a true rating on Wednesday, likely because PolitiFact believes such…

For the leftists on Twitter, the most "notorious" moment of Nikki Haley's CNN town hall with Jake Tapper was her assertion that biological boys in the locker room were spurring suicidal thoughts among girls. Washington Post "Fact Checker" Glenn Kessler then followed quickly behind and threw Four Pinocchios -- "Pants on Fire" Lie! -- at Haley for daring to say such a thing. 

After launching his presidential campaign on Twitter Spaces, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis was condemned by PolitiFact for his assertion that Florida has not banned any books. That summary did not give DeSantis a rating for his claims, but on Wednesday PolitiFact returned to the claim and rated it “false.” Yet, the article itself suggests that a “false” rating is overzealous and is ultimately…

CNN Chief Business Correspondent Christine Romans criticized Republicans for the amount of money the potential budget deal allotted to the IRS on Tuesday. The proposed plan included $60 billion for the IRS as opposed to the $80 billion that Democrats favored. Romans portrayed Republicans as opposed to the public good because they didn’t want to increase the bureaucracy’s budget. She failed to…

How many PolitiFact fact-checkers does it take to fact-check a presidential announcement? Apparently four, as that is how many reporters it took to assess seven statements from Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’s Wednesday campaign launch on Twitter Spaces.