Sunday, February 28, 2010

PolitiFact.com -- checking up on the fact-checkers

PolitiFact.com is just a fun site. Elected officials, and those wo wish they were, love to run their mouth. Sometimes it’s hard to keep up with whose wrong and whose even more wrong. PolitiFact is a nice resource to have when sifting through political rhetoric.


PolitiFact is a project of the St. Petersburg Times. Politifact.com was created in August 2007 and modeled after FactCheck.org. It is updated throughout the day and likely appeals to well-educates, political astute individuals between the ages of 30 and 60. The stories and data are easy to read, making it easy for someone from any background knowledge American politics to access and understand information. They use both internal and external links. PolitiFace.com provides examples on their site, but sourcing the examples through external links to other articles and publications.


The site is easy to navigate, with multiple folders which all come from the home URL, www.politifact.com. I really like the mute color palette: dark grey, light blue and white. The words “We want to hear from you” are on the right-hand side, however, no emails are provided on the site. They do provide a street address and phone number. The “Contact Us” link prompts them to send the message from their site. They do provide interactive media sites such as Facebook and Twitter as well as the opportunity to sign up for weekly email or RSS feed.

The site is really clean and easy to use. It does not allow users to comment on articles, but gives the allusion of interactivity to the “Truth-O-Meter” and other such quirky gauges of accuracy.


Interestingly, there are no ads on the site, which is likely to appear as non-partisan and non-biased as possible. I believe this source to be credible because the articles in which their conclusions are formed are always provided. Additionally, PolitiFact contracts with other news outlets and won a Pulitzer Prize in 2009.

It’s a fun site. You should check it out!

No comments: