18th WORLD EDITORS FORUM

Session: Looking beyond the articleSpeakers: Bill Adair

Vienna, Reed Messe Wien

Mark your calendar

64th WORLD NEWSPAPER CONGRESS19th WORLD EDITORS FORUM

www.wan-ifra.org/kiev2012

Bill AdairEditor, PolitiFact.com

World Editors Forum15 October 2011

4 years….

4,000+ Truth-O-Meter articles

• 508 Obama promises tracked and rated

• 57 Republican promises tracked and rated

The PolitiFact Network:

Partnering with newspapers to run state

PolitiFact sites

The PolitiFact Network• 1st year goal: 6 states• We got: 8• Unique arrangement allows

partners to sell ads on their own sites count own traffic

Breaking away from traditional story forms

• Truth-O-Meter fact-checking articles

• Campaign promise meter updates (Obameter, etc.)

New story forms:• Truth-O-Meter items are fact-

checking articles with different components than news stories

• “Ruling statement” is claim being checked

• We bury the lede – ruling is in conclusion

Truth-O-Meter article:

Campaign promise updates:

• For Pres. Obama, governors, congressional leaders

• Track progress or fulfillment of campaign promises

• Rated In the Works, Stalled, Compromise, Broken or Kept

Campaign promise updates:

• Created a database of all promises

• Updates are short articles that conclude with the rating

Campaign promise updates:

New story forms allow tallying and sorting

• Readers can browse Truth-O-Meter items by:• Person• Subject• Rating

• Person report cards of how many True, False, etc.

Promise meters also allow tallying, sorting

• Readers can browse by subject and rating

• Scorecards of how many Kept, Broken, etc.