Professor Herbert Lowe instructed his students to take a look at their respective beats and something the site does particularly well. On the Tampa Bay Times' site, the top advertisement has been Politifact since I was assigned the beat and I decided to check it out this week. Interestingly enough, the site has a branch that looks at statements made on the presidential campaign trail and looks at how much truth is behind them.
The site takes a very objective approach and ensures that the audience is not lied to as they start to think about who they will vote for on Election Day. A journalist's main obligation to his audience is to report the truth. The Tampa Bay Times is ensuring that this is done in a simple way to follow. They have the speaker on the left-hand column, the statement in question in the middle, and the truth meter on the right. Underneath each meter is a very brief explanation as to why the meter reads as such.
Reading the meter got fun when the site exposed how inaccurate the statements by the Government is Not Good political action committee is. All of their statements are false and in half the cases fall under the "pants on fire" category. I may not always be the most avid reader of political news, but this part of the site opened my eyes to not trusting everything that one side says without looking into the facts.
The first presidential debate is scheduled for Wednesday night and I would highly recommend checking out the Politifact page of the Tampa Bay Times after the debate to see the dissection of statements made between the candidates.
The site takes a very objective approach and ensures that the audience is not lied to as they start to think about who they will vote for on Election Day. A journalist's main obligation to his audience is to report the truth. The Tampa Bay Times is ensuring that this is done in a simple way to follow. They have the speaker on the left-hand column, the statement in question in the middle, and the truth meter on the right. Underneath each meter is a very brief explanation as to why the meter reads as such.
Reading the meter got fun when the site exposed how inaccurate the statements by the Government is Not Good political action committee is. All of their statements are false and in half the cases fall under the "pants on fire" category. I may not always be the most avid reader of political news, but this part of the site opened my eyes to not trusting everything that one side says without looking into the facts.
The first presidential debate is scheduled for Wednesday night and I would highly recommend checking out the Politifact page of the Tampa Bay Times after the debate to see the dissection of statements made between the candidates.