Tracking our corrections and updates

We've created a new page so you can see Truth-O-Meter items that have a correction or update. The page will include articles or Truth-O-Meter fact-checks that have:

• Corrections that were significant enough to change a Truth-O-Meter ruling
• Corrections that did not require changing a ruling
• Updates that provide additional information after the item was initially published

Here is our correction policy, as published in the Principles of the Truth-O-Meter:

We strive to make our work completely accurate. When we make a mistake, we correct it and note it on the original item. If the mistake is so significant that ...

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Posted by Bill Adair :: Published on Tuesday, February 7th, 2012 at 04:29 p.m.

'There's a fair chance PolitiFact spoke to other experts' -- yes, 13 others

We've gotten some criticism today about the Pants on Fire we gave to Mitt Romney for his claim that the size of the U.S. Navy and Air Force shows the United States is at risk of losing its "military superiority."

Tom Bruscino, one of the experts we consulted, wrote in a blog post that he thought it merited a Half True rather than a Pants on Fire.

Bruscino's post, which included his e-mail exchange with us, was picked up conservative bloggers who said it was evidence of liberal bias, and by POLITICO media writer Dylan Byers, who ...

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Posted by Bill Adair :: Published on Thursday, January 19th, 2012 at 06:41 p.m.

Who is PolitiFact? Who pays for Politifact?

Updated Monday, January 9, 2012 at 11:04 a.m.

As we've gained new readers over the years, every now and then we get e-mails that ask, "Who's paying for this Web site? Who's putting out this information?"

The short answer is this: PolitiFact is a project of the Tampa Bay Times and its partner news organizations to help you find the truth in American politics. (See more about our mission on the "About Us" page.) The Times is the biggest newspaper in the Tampa Bay area and it has the largest circulation of any paper in ...

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Posted by Angie Drobnic Holan :: Published on Thursday, October 6th, 2011 at 01:42 p.m.

Help us improve the PolitiFact app

If you have a suggestion or a problem with the PolitiFact app, we want to hear from you.

Please email us at truthometer@politifact.com and tell us about your suggestion or problem.

Thanks for your help in making PolitiFact the No. 1 fact-checking app. (Of course, it's the only fact-checking app...)

- Bill Adair, PolitiFact Editor

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Posted by Bill Adair :: Published on Thursday, June 30th, 2011 at 08:05 a.m.

Coverage of PolitiFact

Highlights from press coverage of PolitiFact: 

An overview of PolitiFact

World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers, Q&A with PolitiFact Editor Bill Adair, Aug. 18, 2011

PolitiFact in the States

American  Journalism Review, the Fact-Checking Explosion, December 2010 / January 2011
Poynter Online, Q&A on PolitiFact state partnerships, May 6, 2010
American Journalism Review, Facing the Truth-O-Meter: PolitiFact"s new Florida operation checks out the veracity of local pols" assertions, March 2010
Austin American-Statesman, Candidates, meet the the Truth-O-Meter, Jan. 14, 2010
Miami Herald, PolitiFact"s Truth-O-Meter will tell us when candidates are off the mark, Feb. 26, 2010 ...

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Posted by Bill Adair :: Published on Thursday, June 23rd, 2011 at 03:48 p.m.

Fact-checking claims about the health care law

Claims about health care have kept the Truth-O-Meter busy. You can browse our coverage on our health care page.

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Posted by Bill Adair :: Published on Thursday, January 20th, 2011 at 06:05 a.m.

A few changes to PolitiFact's Top Promises

When we unveiled our Obameter -- an unprecedented collection of the president's campaign promises -- it had more than 500. Several readers told us they wanted a way to highlight the truly important ones.

So we came up with PolitiFact's Top Promises, which started as a group of 10 campaign promises that the editors and reporters of PolitiFact deemed most significant. Soon afterwards, we expanded the list to the Top 25.

We periodically adjust the list to reflect the most significant issues.

So we're removing five promises from the list and replacing them. No promises are being deleted from ...

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Posted by Angie Drobnic Holan :: Published on Tuesday, January 18th, 2011 at 02:33 p.m.

The GOP Pledge-O-Meter

How the GOP Pledge-O-Meter works

The GOP Pledge-O-Meter keeps track of the promises that Republican leaders made during the 2010 campaign. The Pledge-O-Meter, like the Obameter, has six levels. The first three provide a broad picture of whether the GOP leaders are making progress; the final three indicate whether they kept the promise:

Not Yet Rated — Every promise begins at this level and retains this rating
until we see evidence of progress — or evidence that the promise has
stalled.

In the Works — This is our broad category to indicate the promise has been
proposed or is being considered.

Stalled — There ...

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Posted by Bill Adair :: Published on Saturday, January 1st, 2011 at 05:47 p.m.

Definitions of Truth-O-Meter rulings

The definitions of our Truth-O-Meter rulings:

TRUE – The statement is accurate and there"s nothing significant missing.

MOSTLY TRUE – The statement is accurate but needs clarification or additional information.

HALF TRUE – The statement is accurate but leaves out important details or takes things out of context.

BARELY TRUE – The statement contains some element of truth but ignores critical facts that would give a different impression.

FALSE – The statement is not accurate.

PANTS ON FIRE – The statement is not accurate and makes a ridiculous claim.

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Posted by Bill Adair :: Published on Tuesday, July 20th, 2010 at 02:06 p.m.

We've added a new promise to the Obameter

We've added a new promise to the Obameter.

On the campaign trail, President Barack Obama said he would give car manufacturers about $50 billion to upgrade their facilities to make fuel efficient cars. Up until now, we included that pledge as part of Promise No. 449, to increase vehicle efficiency by 4 percent annually.

The Obama administration put that mandate on the books on April 1, 2010, so we moved it to a Promise Kept. But given that the second part of his promise, to invest in manufacturing, isn't entirely related to his pledge to increase fuel efficiency ...

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Posted by Catharine Richert :: Published on Wednesday, April 7th, 2010 at 01:52 p.m.

A little more on the Iraq war

Last week, we fact-checked a statement about how long the Iraq war has lasted. Newsman Bob Schieffer said it has been our longest war, but we found that is not the case. We rated his statement False. We found that the Revolutionary War, the Vietnam war and the Afghanistan war all lasted longer.

An astute reader on Facebook noted that we could have considered some other conflicts:

"I'd throw in another, the post-Civil War Indian campaigns (think Geronimo, Wounded Knee, Custer's Last Stand, etc.) which went on for decades or, depending on your politics and perspective, centuries, and ...

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Posted by Angie Drobnic Holan :: Published on Friday, April 2nd, 2010 at 02:14 p.m.

Health care reform links discussed on RadioWest

Staff reporter Angie Drobnic Holan discussed health care reform on the RadioWest show on March 15, 2010.

Here's a list of links to some of the stories talked about on the show.

• Health care reform, a simple explanation: We explain the basics of the latest health care reform plan.

• GOP health care reform, a simple explanation: We examine Republican proposals and how they differ from the Democratic plans.

• Sen. Lamar Alexander on Medicaid: How Medicaid works, who will be eligible under the new plan, how many doctors take Medicaid.

• Sen. Jon Kyl on opposition to health care reform: We ...

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Posted by Angie Drobnic Holan :: Published on Monday, March 15th, 2010 at 02:59 p.m.

As seen on TV! Get your Obameter cards!

If you like the Obameter, you can play along at home with a deck of our Obameter cards, manufactured by our friends at U.S. Games.

The 500-card deck is great for classroom projects and for PolitiFact charades (imagine the fun acting out Promise No. 313, "Allow bankruptcy judge to modify terms of a home mortgage"!

You can get them direct from U.S. Games by clicking here. They're only $12.95!

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Posted by Bill Adair :: Published on Sunday, January 17th, 2010 at 02:32 p.m.

More changes to the Obameter list

We've made a few more changes to our Obameter data base:

We're deleting these promises:

* No. 190: Improve domestic intelligence gathering between federal and local emergency responder, because it was a near duplicate of No. 490: Seek more information sharing on security between feds and localities, a promise we currently have rated as In the Works.

* No. 367: Improve plans for disasters,because it essentially duplicates No. 321: Improve emergency response plans.

* No. 364: Change FEMA insurance rules to help cities hit by multiple disasters. This promise was based on an incorrect assumption about the FEMA rules in ...

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Posted by Bill Adair :: Published on Friday, January 8th, 2010 at 06:13 p.m.

The difference between Stalled and Promise Broken

We've been publishing lots of updates to our Obamater database of campaign promises and have been getting some questions about our rating system -- particularly how we distinguish between a Stalled and a Promise Broken. So we thought it would be helpful to explain our ratings.

First, we should emphasize that because the Obameter is our creation, we've had to develop the rating system ourselves. They don't teach this stuff in journalism school -- at least not yet! We've tried to make the system thorough and even-handed. We want to show the relative progress of a campaign promise ...

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Posted by Bill Adair :: Published on Monday, January 4th, 2010 at 03:47 p.m.