In The Spotlight: Holding Politicians Accountable

Welcome to In the Spotlight, a semi-regular feature of this blog, where I highlight one or more of the links on my personal Web site, www.HansMeyer.net.

Today I'll be highlighting two sites dedicated to "Holding Politicians Accountable" by examining their words and advertisements, and highlighting truths, half-truths, half-lies, and outright lies.

First up is Annenberg Political Fact Check, which is a project of the Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania:


The next site, PolitiFact.org, is a new site, established by the St. Petersburg Times of Florida and Congressional Quarterly of Washington, D.C., to monitor truth in 2008 presidential claims.

On a side note, I have been reading the St. Petersburg Times for almost forty years now. Fortunately, it is available each day here in Tallahassee. I highly recommend this newspaper for its journalistic integrity, whether in print or on-line.

From the St. Petersburg Times Web site:

In 1975, Nelson Poynter established the Modern Media Institute (now known as the Poynter Institute for Media Studies) as a non-profit educational institution to teach and research journalism, and to which he left his stock in the Times Publishing Company. (read the entire history of the St. Petersburg Times)

It was this move which enabled the St. Petersburg Times to remain independent and to keep it from being taken over by a media conglomerate.

With thanks to Randy Wooden, of the Wooden Foundation, for alerting me to FactCheck.org and PoltiFact.org.

Go to www.HansMeyer.net/Links, then click on Information for FactCheck.org and PoltiFact.org, or click on Traditional Media Sites for the St. Petersburg Times.

Click here for this and previous In The Spotlight posts.

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