Sorting out the "truth" may seem a treacherous endeavor in such a politically polarized time. But we believe our journalists can play a greater role as an honest broker for voters bewildered by the barrage of campaign talk.
So in a move rare for a news organization, we're dedicating a team of reporters and researchers to meticulously examine the rhetoric of candidates and their partisans, and then make a call: Is the claim true or not?
You might think such work would be standard journalistic fare. But many news organizations can spend less money and get less grief if their political reporting sticks to stenography and puffery.
It's easier to record the words and claims of competing candidates than to vet their accuracy. It's easier to write about the strategy of using negative advertising than to do the painstaking research to sort out whether the claim is actually true or false.
— Neil Brown, Executive Editor of the St. Petersburg Times, announcing Politifact, a new project to determine whether candidate statements are actually true.
A FEW OTHER QUESTIONS
Daniel, why don't you ask him why he voted for Congestion Pricing when an hour before the vote he was against it. Why not ask him why he voted for an 18 1/2% property tax increase. What about Universal Health Care, Supreme Court Judges, transportation, global warming, unions (especially with his brother Tom an anti union lobbyist), veterans, social security, medicare, stem cell research, etc, etc.
This guy who was too afraid of going against Vito in 2006 and didn't want to run in 2008 either didn't elect to run until AFTER Vito said he wasn't running and now I see people kissing his rear and the heir apparent. I and many others know where Steve Harrison stands and Steve has my vote but nobody knows where McMahon is on these issues.