With a staff of 10 split between St. Petersburg and Washington D.C., PolitiFact has published 11,500 fact checks since it’s founding in 2007 and, according to the organization, stands as the first website to win the Pulitzer Prize.
PolitiFact is run by Tampa Bay Times’ editors and reporters along with PunditFact, a website that was established in 2013 to fact check radio and T.V. personalities.
On March 1, PolitiFact editors discussed fact-checking in the Palladium Theatre at St. Petersburg College. (From left to right) Tampa Bay Times deputy managing editor for politics and business Amy Hollyfield, PolitiFact editor Angie Holan, executive director Aaron Sharockman and deputy editor Katie Sanders.
To determine accuracy, the organization’s staffers research claims made by elected officials and others who speak out about U.S. politics. Statements are rated on the Truth-O-Meter scale, a 6-point rating system that ranges from True to False, with the most outrageous falsehoods receiving the lowest rating – Pants on Fire.
And on March 1, known as Super Tuesday – when presidential candidates fight for delegates in over 10 states – PolitiFact editors held an election forum at the downtown Palladium Theatre at St. Petersburg College.
The event was presented by SPC’s Institute for Strategic Policy Solutions and moderated by Neil Brown, the Times’ executive editor.
The forum began with a compilation video that featured well-known media outlets citing the organization’s fact checks and politicians avoiding pointed questions in fear that their answers would be “Politi-Facted.”
“We’ve achieved what we wanted to achieve – we’ve become a verb,” Brown joked after the video ended.
The PolitiFact panel was comprised of four staff members: Executive Editor Aaaron Sharockman, Editor Angie Holan, Deputy Editor Katie Sanders and Amy Hollyfield, the Times’ deputy managing editor of politics and business.
At one point, the audience was able to play the role of fact checker using their cellphones.
The panelists displayed a statement and provided an online link that the crowd could visit to determine the accuracy of the claim using the Truth-O-Meter scale.
The PolitiFact website, according to the organization, reached eight million views in February.
But not everyone is enthusiastic about the pursuit for truth.
“Republicans and Democrats who are running for office do not want PolitiFact to exist,” Sharockman said. “What we’ve seen over seven years, 12,000 times, is that they would be happier if we weren’t fact-checking their claims – it would be the Wild Wild West.
“We try not to make this personal, we’re trying to help correct the record.”
Brown asked the editors to tell the audience why fact checking matters when political candidates like Donald Trump seem to only increase their repeated false claims.
“Donald Trump, I can honestly say, is unlike anyone we’ve fact checked – saying statements that are just wrong, and he doesn’t back off, he actually seems to double down on them,” Holan said.
She continued, explaining the concern over false statements in previous presidential campaigns that weren’t documented by fact-checking journalists the way campaigns are today.
Despite Mr. Trump, fact-checking matters.
