Anchors A-Weigh: May the Politi-Farce be with You

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Add another PolitiFact Detractor to the growing list: a website called Anchors Rising featuring mainly two writers, Justin Katz and Monique Chartier, claiming a similar “liberal” selection bias, this time by Projo PolitiFact Rhode Island. While Weston Hicks calls it Politi-Hack Trackers at PolitiFact Texas, they call it Politi-Farce. But this one has a little more standing in that it not only seems on its face quite professional, lauds PolitiFact Bias as a “much needed site” but it includes commentary from one politico who has been (more than once) subjected to the PolitiFact Truthometer: Republican John Loughlin, “who ran an unsuccessful 2010 campaign for Congress in Rhode Island's 1st District.”

Politi-Farcer Chartier proudly displays the text of Loughlin’s seething commentary:

Politi-Fact has no credibility with me what so ever. On July 20, 2010, I was given a "pants-on-fire liar" rating for relaying the information given to me by Arizona law enforcement that those being human trafficked across the US / Mexico board are often force to carry narcotics as a price of passage. It is extremely difficult to prove this, however this is what I was told by law enforcement on the ground in Arizona (Governor Jan Brewer said the same thing). Subsequent to piece's publication it was reported in the same Providence Journal that 72 Guatemalans were gunned down by the cartels for refusing to carry the drugs. Then the Interior Minister of Mexico made a speech outlining that the human traffickers were being forced to carry drugs. I presented all of this exculpatory evidence to Politi-Fact and was told "well, we already covered that story so we don't want to go back and re-hash it." These low-lifes called me a liar and didn't have the guts to go back and correct their error. I can only conclude it was because Politi-Fact is agenda driven journalism at its very worst.

Chartier wrote with disdain that this indicated PolitiFact’s “ inability to correct a rating when indisputable evidence emerges that it was wrong.” In other words, he asserted he had refuting evidence…. which was anecdotal in character only. Chartier asserted PolitiFact’s ruling was wrong regardless, and said little else to explain why Loughlin’s comment made it true, or citing the information that supported Loughlin’s comments.