St. Petersburg Times
PolitiFact, the St. Petersburg Times’ Pulitzer Prize-winning fact-checking operation, will now allow newspapers to syndicate its content through what it calls the PolitiFact News Service. Already the Times (which Poynter owns) has been franchising PolitiFact to news outlets to do state-level fact-checking; nine of these are underway. PolitiFact Editor Bill Adair tells me that the syndication offer applies to print only, and right now only to the national operation. TechCrunch reports that PolitiFact hasn’t disclosed syndication rates. || Related: PolitiFact takes lesson from fast-food industry as it franchises fact-checking (Poynter.org) | Adair calls the operation “a true cooperative in the model of the Associated Press … where we are sharing all our fact-checking among all our partners” (Nieman Journalism Lab)
The news release follows:
St. Petersburg Times launches PolitiFact News Service
New venture provides Pulitzer Prize-winning fact-checking for print subscribers
The St. Petersburg Times is launching the PolitiFact News Service, a new venture that enables newspapers to publish PolitiFact’s Pulitzer Prize-winning fact-checking articles in their print editions.
Subscribers will be able to publish the latest content from PolitiFact.com for print. The service provides unlimited access to all PolitiFact content, including candidate report cards, Truth-O-Meter fact-checking, and updates and scorecards from the Obameter and GOP Pledge-O-Meter, which track the campaign promises of President Barack Obama and Republican leaders.
The Times launched the service at the request of editors around the country.
“We heard from many editors who love the Truth-O-Meter and would like to use it in their papers,” said Neil Brown, editor of the Times. “This gives them a valuable feature that will help their readers for the 2012 campaign.”
Editors interested in the service should contact Jim Booth, a senior editor at the Times, at jbooth@sptimes.com or (727) 893-8420.
About PolitiFact
PolitiFact.com was launched in 2007 to fact-check the presidential campaign. In 2009, the site began fact-checking pundits and talk show hosts and created a new feature, the Obameter, to track President Obama’s 500-plus campaign promises. The website has received numerous awards, including the 2009 Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting. The site is a product of the St. Petersburg Times, Florida’s largest newspaper, with an average circulation of 429,048 Sunday and 292,441 daily (ABC FAS-FAX March 2011). Considered one of the top ten newspapers in the country, the St. Petersburg Times has eight Pulitzer Prizes to its name.
