Web sites separate facts from fictions

By Tara Weiss
The Hartford Courant

E-mail this article Print this article Search archive Most read articles Most e-mailed articles

It turns out Dick Cheney got more wrong than just the name of the Web site factcheck.org during the vice-presidential debate last week.

Factcheck.org (which Cheney mistakenly referred to as factcheck.com), founded in December to debunk incorrect campaign claims, posted a detailed roundup of the facts Cheney got wrong the day after the debate. The nonpartisan site also noted inaccuracies by Democratic vice-presidential candidate John Edwards.

Factcheck.org isn't alone in its quest to right the campaigns' factual wrongs. Spinsanity.org has been in the business since 2001, and there are several sites such as Columbia Journalism Review's Campaign Desk (www.campaigndesk.org) that critique the media's critique of the debates.

"I think [the candidates are] being more careful about their dishonesty, but they're doing it a lot," said Brendan Nyhan, one of the three founders of spinsanity.org. "The debates are one of the few things that the press actually fact-checks. [But] it's like, can you do this the other 364 days per year?"

Networks under fire

Others have criticized the network attempts at fact-checking.

"CNN's fact-checking after the first two debates was pretty poor," said Peter Hart, a media analyst for Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting.

Specifically he was referring to CNN's Bill Schneider, who focused on statements made by President Bush, and David Ensor, who watched for inaccuracies or exaggerations by Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry.

"Schneider only came up with one exaggeration from the Bush camp, and it's one that Kerry noticed and rebutted [during the debate]," Hart said. "If you picked up a newspaper the next day, you saw a handful of things he could have done. Ensor picked up on four things, but two of them were taken out of context, and it wasn't quite accurate. The other two were rather minor. It was kind of unfulfilling if you were hoping to get real analysis."
 
Others said the situation was worsened by the postdebate "spin alley," where representatives for both camps champion their candidate's performance.

"The explosion of spin has outstripped the media's ability to counter that," Nyhan said. "Sites like ours [are] a response to that."

Hart suggested replacing spin alley with actual experts in the specific fields discussed, such as taxes and health care.

A growing influence

When Brooks Jackson was let go from CNN a year ago, he was asked to run factcheck.org, part of the Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania. He has become known for his checks of political advertising, and he envisioned factcheck.org as a tool for journalists.

The New York Times, Philadelphia Inquirer and The Arizona Republic have quoted its articles. Jackson has been interviewed on countless media outlets, including CNBC, National Public Radio and MSNBC. But when it was mentioned by Cheney during the debate, it went from an average of 29,000 visitors per day to 368,000 within 24 hours.

"We're not going to reach most voters, and we do recognize that," Nyhan acknowledged. "It really depends on our analysis getting out there and influencing reporters, and that multiplier effect can be very powerful."