{"id":1472118,"date":"2022-05-11T17:44:36","date_gmt":"2022-05-11T21:44:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1472118"},"modified":"2022-05-11T17:44:40","modified_gmt":"2022-05-11T21:44:40","slug":"meet-the-former-politifact-fact-checker-who-quit-over-left-wing-bias-wanted-me-to-help-them-nail-republicans","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/meet-the-former-politifact-fact-checker-who-quit-over-left-wing-bias-wanted-me-to-help-them-nail-republicans\/","title":{"rendered":"Meet The Former Politifact Fact Checker Who Quit Over Left-Wing Bias: \u2018Wanted Me To Help Them Nail Republicans\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"float:left\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">36<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fmeet-the-former-politifact-fact-checker-who-quit-over-left-wing-bias-wanted-me-to-help-them-nail-republicans%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1472118&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><div><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/dw-wp-production.imgix.net\/2022\/05\/Politifact.jpg?w=1200&#038;h=800&#038;ixlib=react-9.3.0\" class=\"ff-og-image-inserted\" alt=\"image\" \/><\/div>\n<p><span>An economist who formerly worked with the fact-checking site PolitiFact as one of the website\u2019s go-to sources for fact finding says he quit over the company\u2019s Left-wing bias.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>Brian Riedl, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, told The Daily Wire that he worked with PolitiFact over a decade ago when the fact checking site had first launched. Riedl said PolitiFact journalists consulted him on dozens of articles and ratings before he stopped working with the fact-checking site over its bias.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>\u201cConservatives have a right to be suspicious of PolitiFact because their reporters openly shared their biases with their sources,\u201d Riedl told The Daily Wire. \u201cThey would start with a rating and then ask their sources for ammunition to justify a preset rating. It was brazen.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>PolitiFact approached Riedl around 2007 to see if he would be a regular expert source for reporters to call for fact checking. At the time, Riedl was working as an economic expert at the conservative think tank The Heritage Foundation and had developed a reputation for being critical of former President George W. Bush\u2019s financial policy.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>\u201cI had established a pretty notable reputation in Washington for pummeling President Bush for runaway spending, and it got me a lot of media love at the time \u2014 that I was a Heritage Foundation employee who was criticizing a Republican president,\u201d Reidl said.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>\u201cFor a lot of reporters, the best source is a conservative willing to trash Republicans. They came to me and basically thought that because I had criticized Bush so much on runaway spending, that I would provide a veneer of bipartisan credibility by trashing republicans in their fact-checking,\u201d he explained.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>\u201cWhen I started criticizing Obama for the same thing a few years later, suddenly all the reporters didn\u2019t like me,\u201d Reidl continued.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>Riedl stated that PolitiFact reporters revealed their bias in several ways. According to Riedl, reporters would explicitly ask for quotes hitting Republicans, or they would ask if Riedl knew of any outrageous statements from Republicans that were ripe for fact-checking.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>Riedl said many times reporters would consult with him only to disagree with his assessment and leave his comments out of their articles. Reporters would go \u201cexpert shopping,\u201d or contact specialists with similar biases to the reporter in order to substantiate a preset narrative. He said that many articles he consulted on were published without his comments, but they contained remarks from different experts who had voiced opinions critical of the GOP or conservatives.<\/span><span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>\u201cThey were employing double standards. They were using straw men. They were presetting the rating before they talked to people,\u201d Riedl recalled. \u201cAnd their response was if you are not going to give us the ammunition and arguments we want, then we\u2019ll find someone else who will.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>In 2013, The Center for Media and Public Affairs at George Mason University<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/cmpa.gmu.edu\/study-media-fact-checker-says-republicans-lie-more\/\"> <span>reviewed<\/span><\/a><span> the ratings of 100 PolitiFact articles from the first four months of former President Barack Obama\u2019s second term. The researchers, using PolitiFact fact checks, reported that a \u201c<\/span><span>leading media fact-checking organization rates Republicans<\/span><span> as less trustworthy than Democrats.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>The researchers did not audit the fact-check ratings, nor did they process through which sources PolitiFact had chosen to consult or which statements the site chose to fact check. Beyond the researchers\u2019 topline takeaway, they admit that the best their study can show is \u201chow individuals, groups, political parties, etc. are <\/span><i><span>portrayed<\/span><\/i><span> in this increasingly important genre of political journalism\u201d (emphasis added).<\/span><span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>The findings, at least, are as supportive of Riedl\u2019s claims as those of the university researchers. According to the researchers:<\/span><\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p><i><span>PolitiFact rated 32% of Republican claims as \u201cfalse\u201d or \u201cpants on fire,\u201d compared to 11% of Democratic claims \u2013 a 3 to 1 margin. Conversely, Politifact rated 22% of Democratic claims as \u201centirely true\u201d compared to 11% of Republican claims \u2013 a 2 to 1 margin.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n<p><i><span>A majority of Democratic statements (54%) were rated as mostly or entirely true, compared to only 18% of Republican statements. Conversely, a majority of Republican statements (52%) were rated as mostly or entirely false, compared to only 24% of Democratic statements.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n<p><i><span>Despite controversies over Obama administration statements regarding Benghazi, the IRS and the Associated Press, Republicans have continued to fare worse than Democrats, with 60% of their claims rated as false so far this month (May 1 \u2013 May 22), compared to 29% of Democratic statements \u2013 a 2 to 1 margin.\u00a0<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n<p><i><span>This study\u2019s findings are similar to those of a previous CMPA study, which found that PolitiFact gave more negative ratings to the Romney campaign than the Obama campaign during the 2012 presidential election campaign.<\/span><\/i><span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p><span>\u201cThrough the years, I have continued to follow their ratings, and a lot of the same people are still there \u2014 and their ratings are a joke,\u201d Riedl said. \u201cThey make huge elementary factual mistakes in their fact checks. It\u2019s all motivated reasoning.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>\u201cWhen you read their fact checks, it is painfully obvious that they often decided on the rating first and backward reasoned their way through intellectual logical backflips, trying to come up with any way to justify the rating,\u201d he continued. \u201cThey\u2019re a joke.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><i>The views expressed in this opinion piece are the author\u2019s own and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>An economist who formerly worked with the fact-checking site PolitiFact as one of the website\u2019s go-to sources for fact finding says he quit over the company\u2019s Left-wing bias.Brian Riedl, a<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":70,"featured_media":1482655,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1472118","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1472118","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/70"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1472118"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1472118\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1482655"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1472118"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1472118"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1472118"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}