Is that Really Factual?: Focus on Healthcare Reform—Don’t Believe Everything You Read
In her latest Newslink Spotlight, Information Today's NewsBreaks Editor, Paula Hane, takes a look at several resources that can help you verify and "fact check" stories being discussed or debated in the news. Hane's is the healthcare debate in this article.
The first service mentioned is FactCheck.org, a non-partisan and non-profit site/service from the University of Pennsylvania where journalists and others do the fact checking.
Paula puts it this way:
As a nonpartisan, nonprofit "consumer advocate" for voters, FactCheck.org, a project of the Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania, aims to reduce the level of deception and confusion in U.S. politics. It monitors the factual accuracy of what is said by major U.S. political players in the form of TV ads, debates, speeches, interviews, and news releases. Its goals are to apply the best practices of both journalism and scholarship and to increase public knowledge and understanding. It's definitely a good site to know about when the fur is flying over important issues such as healthcare reform.
The article goes on to discuss a similar service from the St. Petersburg Times named PoliFact
Reporters and editors from the Times fact-check statements by members of Congress, the White House, lobbyists, and interest groups and rate them on a Truth-O-Meter.
The article then provides several sites that focus specifically on the healthcare debate including:
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