Fact-Checking the Fact Checkers

So the liberals at the Tulsa World are teaming up with the liberals at PolitiFact to do "independent fact-checking." What could possibly go wrong?

Commentators have long pointed out the liberal tilt at PolitiFact. (Earlier this month PolitiFact "fact checked" Hillary Clinton's book and, lo and behold, couldn't find anything "false," much less "pants on fire.") Mark Hemingway notes ("Study Shows Fact-Checkers Are Bad at Their Jobs") that "fact checkers don't come close to producing ratings that would be acceptable by the standards of academic social science. And if you know what a garbage fire the issue of accuracy in social science is, that is really saying something."

Mollie Hemingway is similarly forthright: "PolitiFact is a joke. They should be trusted with nothing. They are the worst candidates to adjudicate fakery in the entire media establishment. Even among the disreputable 'fact' 'checking' class, they are noteworthy for their awfulness."

Be sure to check back often for updates about "fact" "checking."

UPDATES:

• Meet The Former Politifact Fact Checker Who Quit Over Left-Wing Bias: ‘Wanted Me To Help Them Nail Republicans’
• Associated Press Hires HuffPost Editor to Lead New ‘Fact-Checking’ Unit 
• A New York Times ‘Fact-Checker’ Misfires on Guns 
• PolitiFact Defends Eugenist Margaret Sanger
• PolitiFact Attempts To Fundraise After Claiming It Was ‘Targeted’ By Conservatives 
• Surprise! Another Way PolitiFact Rates Claims Inconsistently 
• How Do You Rate a True Statement as Only 'Half True'? 
• "Public trust in media has been low for some time," The Oklahoman points out. "Ironically, 'fact checker' stories may contribute to the problem. When Chloe Lim, a Ph.D. student at Stanford University, compared the evaluations issued by PolitiFact at the Tampa Bay Times and Fact Checker at Washington Post, she found 'little agreement in their ratings' when both organizations examined the same statement. In one out of every five instances, 'one fact-checker considers a statement true while the other fact-checker flags the same statement as a lie,' Lim wrote. Put simply, many 'fact checker' features are actually expressions of editorial opinion."
• PolitiFact Rates Obama, Schumer 'Half True' When They Mislead; GOP Senator 'Mostly False'
• PolitiFact Fails at Trying to Fact-Check Tax Increase Ad
• Politifact Rates an Obviously Satirical Bergdahl Entry 'Pants on Fire'
• "PolitiFact’s Jon Greenberg, a former reporter for National Public Radio, brought in experts to act mystified at what 'full-term abortion' means."
• Oh look, it's another op-ed column masquerading as a fact check.
• "Actual WaPo fact check: Pence jobs claim correct, so only 3 Pinocchios for him"  
• "Calling Pence A Liar While Protecting Warren Is Why People Hate Media"
• "PolitiFact vs. Kayla Moore" 
• "PolitiFact is not a fact-checker," Don Surber writes ("PolitiFact is the lie of the year"). "It is a liar."
• At PolitiFact, "they know they have a credibility problem, since they have been convicted of liberal bias more times than anyone can count."
• Alas, on March 27, 2018, the Media Research Center announced the launch of a "Fact-Checking the Fact-Checkers" project. This is great news indeed.
• "Politifact is a pro-Democrat organization masquerading as an independent fact-checker and should be regarded as such," Guy Benson writes.
• "We've noted the flaws of media 'fact checking,'" The Oklahoman editorializes today. "Now the conservative Media Research Center has launched Fact-Checking the Fact-Checkers to review the work of those groups. ... Critics will argue, correctly, that MRC reviewers have their own biases. That doesn't change the fact many media 'fact checks' are a joke. When a Ph.D. student at Stanford University reviewed the work of the two major media fact-checking organizations in 2017, she found they gave 'two completely opposite ratings' nearly one out of every five times the two 'fact checked' the same statement. That doesn't happen with valid fact checking, and shows how much of the work of 'fact checkers' is improperly labeled editorial commentary."
• PolitiFact is not that neutral, Robert E. Branson of Tulsa points out.
• PolitiFact's double standard makes Oklahoma teachers look poorer than they really are, my colleague Trent England writes.
• Ted Cruz says PolitiFact is "a liberal parody site."
• "The Washington Post Fact-Checker column ends its controversial run this week," the parody site Scrappleface tells us ("Washington Post Fact-Checker Dies in Darkness"). "Reporter Glenn Kessler will no longer try to determine 'the truth behind the rhetoric,' after the publisher concluded that 'facts simply don’t exist, truth seems anachronistic, and all is dank and futile in the gloaming of the age. Our readers and writers long ago abandoned the notion of objective truth. ... What’s the point of fact-checking? ... We’ve found no practical way to check whether culturally-shaped, class-dependent, subjective impressions, stated in the historically-distorted language of the oppressor can be verified, or said to have more value than their categorical opposites.'"
• PolitiFact runs cover for Claire McCaskill:

  It’s time to call it for what it is. @PolitiFact is not a honest fact checker, they are a biased organization running cover for Democrats, while misleading the American people.
  
  Watch: pic.twitter.com/DTzrG1dhzv

  — The Reagan Battalion (@ReaganBattalion) October 17, 2018

• "There is no independent, absolutely objective, politically neutral ground on which anyone, the fact checker or otherwise, can stand," Albert Mohler reminds us. "Christians understand, based upon a biblical affirmation of truth, that facts, meaning truths, really do matter. But we also understand that what is identified as a fact is not always factually a fact. If we are going to have fact checkers, then someone is going to have to check the fact checkers. And then someone will have to check the one who checks the fact checkers. That's just life in a fallen world. But this is where Christians understand that truth matters, it always matters, but truth is never uncontroversial."
• PolitiFact butchers its "fact check" on Donald Trump and Ralph Northam.