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Since our beginning five years ago, voiceofsandiego.org has been in the business of checking facts. Our reporters gather information that’s relevant to San Diego’s public dialogue and determine whether it is, in fact, accurate.
This blog, called Fact Check, is an expansion of that service.
Through a simple format, our reporters will regularly post information and explain how they gauge its accuracy. Each piece of information or statement will get ranked with one of the following categories:
True
Mostly True
Barely True
Misleading
False
Huckster Propaganda
We’ll post the quote, information or argument. We’ll do the research and analyze it. And then we’ll determine what it is — complete with a fun graphic. It’s modeled after Politifact, a Pulitzer Prize-winning project of the St. Petersburg Times.
Our fact-checking machine won’t just be text. VOSD’s Andrew Donohue and Scott Lewis will be doing a weekly San Diego Fact Check television segment on NBC 7/39. It will air on the Friday 6 p.m. news and we’ll also be posting the video here as well.
We’ve created this new blog because San Diegans need a place where local leaders, politicians, media organizations (including ourselves), businesses, unions and anyone else can be held accountable for spreading false information. We’re not trying to humiliate people, but rather, encourage more honest and open conversations about how to make this city a better place.
We hope that you will encourage this project by sending your Fact Check suggestions to our reporters in the future. You can contact reporters by e-mail or by calling our newsroom at 619.325.0525.
You can also contact me directly with any tips or questions, as I’ll be heading up the effort. My direct line is 619.550.5668 and my e-mail address is keegan.kyle@voiceofsandiego.org. We’ll also have the dedicated e-mail of factcheck@voiceofsandiego.org. Put “Fact Check” in the subject line.
Also, please do not hesitate to join the discussion when we publish a Fact Check blog post. If you disagree with our analysis, let us know in the comments section of the blog post. We’ll try to answer your questions as soon as possible.
— KEEGAN KYLE