1. 18th WORLD EDITORS FORUM
Session: Looking beyond the article
Speakers: Bill Adair
Mark your calendar
64th WORLD NEWSPAPER CONGRESS
19th WORLD EDITORS FORUM
Vienna, Reed Messe Wien
www.wan-ifra.org/kiev2012

2. Bill Adair
Editor, PolitiFact.com
World Editors Forum
15 October 2011

3. 4 years….

4. 4,000+ Truth-O-Meter
articles

5. • 508 Obama promises
tracked and rated
• 57 Republican promises
tracked and rated

6. The PolitiFact Network:
Partnering with
newspapers to run state
PolitiFact sites

8. 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

9. Breaking away from
traditional story forms
• Truth-O-Meter fact-checking
articles
• Campaign promise meter
updates (Obameter, etc.)

10. 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

11. Truth-O-Meter article:

12. 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

13. Campaign promise
updates:
• Created a database of all
promises
• Updates are short articles that
conclude with the rating

14. Campaign promise updates:

15. 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.

17. Promise meters also
allow tallying, sorting
• Readers can browse by subject
and rating
• Scorecards of how many Kept,
Broken, etc.