We get a lot of questions like this, but this reader did a *particular* succinct job of combining the most frequent questions PolitiFact receives. Read below if you've ever wondered about these aspects of our fact-checking organization.
On donors:
PolitiFact sells content to media publishers and companies. Grants, individual donations and site advertising make up the rest of our revenue. We list donors over $1,000 here: politifact.com/who-pays-for-p…
On where we get our info:
We only use on-the-record (never anonymous) sources and primary documents, and we list them at the bottom of all of our stories and fact-checks. We dig deep and don't rely on secondhand reports. More on our sources: bit.ly/2A6DMIK
On who checks us:
We're a member of @factchecknet, a coalition of fact-checkers all over the world. In order to be a part of that organization, we sign onto a Code of Principles and agree to its values of truth and accountability. ifcncodeofprinciples.poynter.org
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Lies infected America in 2020. The very worst were not just damaging, but deadly. PolitiFact’s 2020 Lie of the Year: Coronavirus downplay and denial. bit.ly/lieoftheyear20…
COVID-19 has killed more than 300,000 people in the United States. And yet, the threat of it has been downplayed at multiple levels since the very beginning of the pandemic.
We use the word “lie” once a year, when we consider a year’s worth of fact-checking and pick a falsehood that proves to be of real consequence. politifact.com/article/2018/d…
In a video on Facebook, Trump said that Democrats pushed to mail out millions of ballots to voters “with virtually no safeguards.” That’s bogus. First, GOP election officials mailed out ballots too. And there were safeguards nationwide. bit.ly/37Y4ou4
Trump said that mail in voting led to “fraud and abuse” on a scale never seen before. Wrong. Federal officials said the Nov. 3 election “was the most secure in American history.” bit.ly/3pIhRfS
Trump repeated the myth that ballots were sent en masse to dead people in Nevada. Around 226,000 ballots for the primary were returned to Clark County because the voters didn’t live at the address, but that doesn’t mean they were all dead. bit.ly/32ekIDS
A note from PolitiFact's Editor-in-Chief @AngieHolan: Since the election, we’ve heard from many readers who are disappointed with our fact-checking work on the election results. Here are a few of the comments we’ve received.
It's an unfortunate product of these polarized times that information deemed unfavorable toward a candidate is perceived as partisan.
Our role is not to make any candidate look good — and it’s certainly not to help any candidate win an election. It's to help you navigate a confusing information landscape and make sure you have access to accurate information.
In 2016 and 2018, Sen. @LindseyGrahamSC said a Supreme Court vacancy should not be filled in an election year.
"If an opening comes in the last year of President Donald Trump's term, and the primary process has started, we'll wait until the next election," he said Oct. 3, 2018.
Now, Graham said he supports filling the current vacancy before the next president’s term begins.
Fact-checking President Trump's ABC town hall claims on coronavirus, Joe Biden bit.ly/32Bd0Uj THREAD:
Trump deflected criticism of how he has handled the pandemic. Even as the death toll — about 200,000 — moves toward the higher end of initial forecasts, Trump said he took strong steps to stem the spread of the disease.
When ABC host George Stephanopulous asked him why he hadn’t yet put forward a replacement plan with protections in place, Trump said, "I have it all ready." He has promised this before, it has not emerged: politifact.com/article/2020/a…@KHNews
Thanks @PressSec, for the response. You said the president “never downplayed the virus.” It seems that the president’s words are the ones that matter. Here is some of what President Trump said. bit.ly/32c0sCB
Jan. 30: "We think we have it very well under control. We have very little problem in this country at this moment — five. ... We think it’s going to have a very good ending for it."
Feb. 2: "We pretty much shut it down coming in from China."
Feb. 14: “We have a very small number of people in the country, right now, with it. It’s like around 12. Many of them are getting better. Some are fully recovered already. So we’re in very good shape."
Feb. 24: “The Coronavirus is very much under control in the USA.”