PolitiFact has already stepped in it twice this week, publishing two false stories favoring Democratic candidates, and I suspect the rate of errors favoring Democrats isn’t going to decline the closer we get to the November midterm elections.
The first bogus PolitiFact ruling, which gives a “mostly false” ruling to an absolutely true claim made in an ad by Arizona Republican Senate Candidate Rep. Martha McSally, R-Ariz., still stands. The second bogus PolitiFact story, which originally gave a “false” ruling to a GOP ad claiming Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., once said “normal people” can afford to fly on private planes, has already been retracted and reissued with a new, still bogus ruling. It’s not even the weekend.
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On Wednesday, just hours after publishing its “false” ruling, Politifact unpublished its McCaskill story, claiming it would “re-evaluate” it in light of “ new evidence.” And by “new evidence,” PolitiFact means they actually went out and watched evidence that was months old — a longer version of the clipped town hall interaction. Why they didn't do that in the first place is anyone's guess.
"[A]fter publication,” the group said in the re-evaluated version of its story, “we received more complete video of the question-and-answer session between McCaskill and a constituent that showed she was in fact responding to a question about private planes, as well as a report describing the meeting … We apologize for the error."
PolitiFact is forced to retract a story claiming Claire McCaskill didn’t say what she definitely said
The first bogus PolitiFact ruling, which gives a “mostly false” ruling to an absolutely true claim made in an ad by Arizona Republican Senate Candidate Rep. Martha McSally, R-Ariz., still stands. The second bogus PolitiFact story, which originally gave a “false” ruling to a GOP ad claiming Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., once said “normal people” can afford to fly on private planes, has already been retracted and reissued with a new, still bogus ruling. It’s not even the weekend.
[clip]
On Wednesday, just hours after publishing its “false” ruling, Politifact unpublished its McCaskill story, claiming it would “re-evaluate” it in light of “ new evidence.” And by “new evidence,” PolitiFact means they actually went out and watched evidence that was months old — a longer version of the clipped town hall interaction. Why they didn't do that in the first place is anyone's guess.
"[A]fter publication,” the group said in the re-evaluated version of its story, “we received more complete video of the question-and-answer session between McCaskill and a constituent that showed she was in fact responding to a question about private planes, as well as a report describing the meeting … We apologize for the error."
PolitiFact is forced to retract a story claiming Claire McCaskill didn’t say what she definitely said
