As the 2012 presidential campaign nears its climax, political rhetoric is at a fever pitch and fact-checkers are busier than ever. Are politicians bending the truth more this year than in past elections? Where’s the line between political hyperbole and flat-out lying — and how much do voters really care?
Fact Checking Resources
- FactCheck.org: A project of the Annenburg Public Policy Center
- Politifact.com: A project of the Tampa Bay Times and its partners
- SuperPacAPP: An iPhone app that identifies funding of and accuracy in political ads and that fact checks the content of the ad
Useful Articles
- Why Politicians Lie (and Why They Can Get Away With it): Why we believe most people and why the bigger lie is the more effective lie (Psychology Today)
- Fact-Checking – What Exactly are We Debating Again?: Explains why fact-checking is in the news and argues that fact-checking is needed partly because of today's online media landscape (The Washington Post)
- The Death of the Fact in the Age of 'Truthiness: Explores the "backfire effect" of correcting a lie (NPR)
- Fact-Checking Campaign Lies – Does Anyboy Give a Damn: Asks some big questions on political falsehoods and provides a recent, albeit brief, historical context (The Atlantic)
- Fact-checking Gets Fact-checked: Curated list of articles on the topic of fact-checking from a media-insider viewpoint (Poynter)