Media Coverage of Politics: Commentary & Fact-Checking Resources: Home

Produced by the national media watch group FAIR ("Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting) Counterspin, is a weekly radio show (available in podcast) that "provides a critical examination of major news stories." FAIR's site includes a useful overview on How to Detect Media Bias.

Source watch, a project of the Center for Media and Democracy, is a collaboratively edited wiki dedicated to critically examining attempts by PR firms and other entities to influence public opinion.

OpenSecrets.org is a project of the nonpartisan, nonprofit research group The Center for Responsive Politics.  The group’s mission is to “track[] money in U.S. politics and its effect on elections and public policy [and] to create a more educated voter, an involved citizenry and a more responsive government.”

As stated on its Website “[t]he Annenberg Political Fact Check is a project of the Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania.”  The mission of the nonpartisan, nonprofit project is “to reduce the level of deception and confusion in U.S. politics.”  The project “monitor[s] the factual accuracy of what is said by major U.S. political players in the form of TV ads, debates, speeches, interviews and news releases.”

This site reflects the fact-checking efforts of researchers and reporters working for the St. Petersburg Times to “examine statements by members of Congress, the president, cabinet secretaries, lobbyists, people who testify before Congress and anyone else who speaks up in Washington.”  The project won the 2009 Pulitzer Prize for national reporting.

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