Fact-checking

Fact-checkers rate claims false, misleading, or unsupported based on the evidence and arguments

Outline

  1. Fact-checking
  2. Main Ratings
  3. Examples
    1. Claim Rated False
    2. Claim Rated Misleading
    3. Claim Rated Unsupported
  4. Other Evaluations
  5. Fact-checking Sites
  6. Rating Systems, Principles, and Methods
  7. Burden of Proof and Standard of Evidence
  8. What evidence do you have? factcheck.org (2016)
  9. Fact-checks of 2023
  10. Fact-checks of Trump’s Claims
    1. Closing Arguments of 2024 Campaign
    2. Repeated Claims
    3. factcheck.org
    4. Politifact
    5. Washington Post Fact Checker
  11. Misleading, Doctored, and Fabricated Video, Audio, and Images

Fact-checking

Fact-checkers rate claims false, misleading, or unsupported based on an analysis of the evidence and arguments

  • Evidence is an established fact that makes a claim more (or less) probable than it would be otherwise.
  • An argument is a piece of reasoning from premises to a conclusion, typically set forth to prove or disprove a claim.

Main Ratings

  • False means that the claim has been shown to be false.
    • Synonyms: untrue, wrong
  • Misleading means that the claim is true but apt to mislead
  • Unsupported means that the claim has not been established
    • Synonyms: baseless, groundless, no basis in fact, unsubstantiated, unfounded, lacks evidence, no evidence

The words”establish,” “show,” and “prove” mean to prove beyond a reasonable doubt, based on the evidence and arguments.

Examples

Claim Rated False
  • Claim
    • Biden visited New York City the day after 9/11.
  • factcheck.org
    • The Congressional Record notes that Biden was in the Senate that day, and C-SPAN footage documents that he spoke briefly from the floor.
  • Thus the claim has been shown to be false.
Claim Rated Misleading
  • Claims
    • There are more Americans working today than ever before in American history. (Mike Pence 2017)
    • In fact, there are more people working in America than at any point in American history. (Joe Biden 2022)
  • Washington Post Fact Checker
    • Of course there are more Americans working. That’s because there are more Americans today than ever before. More meaningful measures of the overall health of the job market take population into consideration.
  • Thus the Pence and Biden claims are true but apt to mislead.
Claim Rated Unsupported
  • Claim
    • While president, Trump declassified all the secret documents in his possession.
  • CNN Facts First
    • Trump and his team have not provided any proof that Trump actually conducted some sort of broad declassification of the documents.
    • Eighteen former top Trump administration officials, including two former White House chiefs of staff who spoke on the record, said that they never heard of a standing Trump declassification order when they were serving in the administration and that they now believe the claim is false.
  • Thus the claim has not been established by the evidence.

Other Evaluations

  • Cherry Picks
  • Distorts the Facts
  • Exaggerated
  • Needs Context
  • Not Whole Story
  • Out of Context
  • Spins the Facts
  • True

Fact-checking Sites

Rating Systems, Principles, and Methods

Burden of Proof and Standard of Evidence

What evidence do you have?
factcheck.org (2016)

  • It’s a simple question, one that we ask candidates, campaigns and political committees all the time: “What evidence do you have?” 
  • That’s why we were heartened to see NBC’s Lester Holt ask Trump “what evidence do you have” to support two of Trump’s claims in a June 22 speech that we and other fact-checkers found contained numerous false claims.
  • In an interview with NBC’s Lester Holt, Trump claimed that Clinton’s email server had been hacked?  Lester Holt asked “What evidence do you have?”
  • When that didn’t elicit a response, Holt asked again, “But is there any evidence that it was hacked other than routine phishing?” Trump finally said that he heard or read about Clinton’s email being successfully hacked. Asked where he got that information, Trump said, “I will report back to you. I’ll give it to you.”
  • We would like to see more TV news anchors challenge the presidential candidates on statements that fact-checkers universally agree are false and misleading, especially those that are made without any evidence. It just takes a simple question, “What evidence do you have?”

Fact-checks of 2023

Fact-checks of Trump’s Claims

Closing Arguments of 2024 Campaign
Repeated Claims
  • Big Lie
    • Claim: Trump lost the 2020 presidential election because of fraud
  • Tariffs
    • Claim: China has paid billions of dollars to the U.S. in tariffs
    • Claim: Tariffs are paid by foreign countries
      • Fact check: Trump and Vance keep falsely describing how tariffs work CNN Facts First
      • Trump and Vance’s false and misleading rhetoric on tariffs  WaPo fact checker
  • Immigration
    • Claim: Other countries are “emptying out” their prisons and “mental institutions and insane asylums” and sending those people to the U.S.
    • Claim: Decrease of crime in Venezuela is evidence that Venezuela is sending its prisoners to the U.S.
      • Crime Drop in Venezuela Does Not Prove Trump’s Claim the Country Is Sending Criminals to U.S.  factcheck.org
  • Crowd Size
    • Claim: Speech on the White House Ellipse drew the “same number of people,” as the 1963 March on Washington where Martin Luther King Jr. gave his “I Have a Dream” speech.
      • Says his Jan. 6, 2021, speech on the White House Ellipse drew the “same number of people,” as the 1963 March on Washington where Martin Luther King Jr. gave his “I Have a Dream” speech.  Politifact
  • Abortion
    • Claim: “All legal scholars, both sides, wanted, and in fact demanded” that Roe v. Wade be overturned.
    • Claim: Democrats support infanticide
      • Donald Trump is wrong on Democrats’ abortion stance. They don’t support the ‘execution’ of babies. Politifact
  • Crime
    • Claim: FBI data that show homicides and other violent crimes trending down are “fake numbers.”
factcheck.org
Politifact
Washington Post Fact Checker

Misleading, Doctored, and Fabricated Video, Audio, and Images

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