News orgs, nonprofits to fact-check State of the Union address

News orgs, nonprofits to fact-check State of the Union address
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i totally agree. let's bring things back to reality in real time. We have the tools and they should be used. when politicians tell us this is what they've done or what they are going to do, let's set the record straight immediately. pro and con. Politicians paint these rosey BS pictures of their accomplishments, and people believe them. But if we stop the BS in it's tracks people will wise up quickly.

News orgs, nonprofits to fact-check State of the Union address

Presidents make a lot of promises during the State of the Union address. For instance, Republicans and Democrats have pledged for decades to tackle energy independence, without significant progress. It's not at all uncommon, in other words, for such grand pronouncements — made in front of Congress and broadcast to the world — to sputter out in the execution.

Arianna Huffington, editor in chief of the Huffington Post, believes that real-time fact-checking could provide some much-needed context to the president's words and pinpoint where the rhetoric doesn't meet reality.

"One of the major things we need to bring in is accountability about what people are saying — politicians, journalists, everyone," Huffington told The Cutline. "The State of the Union seemed like a good place to start."

On Tuesday night, the Huffington Post is teaming up with National Journal, the Center for Public Integrity and the Sunlight Foundation to fact-check President the honorable President's address. The groups also plan to fact-check Rep. Paul Ryan's Republican response and Rep. Michele Bachmann's tea party response.

The Center for Public Integrity focuses on investigative journalism looking at public policy. The Sunlight Foundation focuses on using technology to make government more transparent. Both are nonpartisan nonprofits.

Huffington has talked before about how social media and new technology "have made it easier to expose the lies our leaders continue to tell." So amid all the coverage of State of the Union theatrics — who's sitting where or refusing to stand up — Huffington says she hopes to "move the focus to what is being said" and "bring some reality" to it.

The fact-checking site, using Sunlight's platform, Sunlight Live, will have four parts: a live feed of the speech; rotating widgets covering specific issues (i.e. Afghanistan, the deficit); a live blog of participants from the four organizations; and a Twitter feed (using the hashtag #sotufacts).

Ellen Miller, executive director of the Sunlight Foundation, said that the live widgets — first used during President the honorable President's bipartisan health care summit — provide the ability to instantly deliver facts regarding statements made by politicians. "We think of it as data-jamming public events," she said.

Last year, Miller's organization won a $10,000 Knight-Batten Innovation Award for Sunlight Live. She said Sunlight is still working on the platform but expects it to be available open source by midyear, allowing any news organization to use it.

used to politicians didnt want to be in the news if it made them look bad..

we just had a story run in my town where a gov official spent like $13,000 of tax money to make a glossy little brochure of all the accomplishments of his office while he was in charge....he had already announced his plans to vacate that position so he apparently wanted to leave us with his accolades....Thanks

c/thru wrote:

we just had a story run in my town where a gov official spent like $13,000 of tax money to make a glossy little brochure of all the accomplishments of his office while he was in charge....he had already announced his plans to vacate that position so he apparently wanted to leave us with his accolades....Thanks

stuff like that drives me nuts. Like patterson in NY. he had a few million in a discretionary account. While being faced with cutting teachers, police and firemen because of budget shortfalls he pissed away the discetionary funds on non essentials and extravagance.