PolitiFact Editor-in-Chief Complains About Dan Bongino and Others Constantly Proving Them Wrong

In a new article complaining about people proving them wrong, PolitiFact’s editor-in-chief Angie Drobnic Holan has opted to brand all the criticism of their godawful work “harassment.”

Reporters at @PolitiFact are doing great work, despite online harassment from unexpected places. I'm proud to work with them! https://t.co/29HCm3evp4

— Angie Drobnic Holan (@AngieHolan) June 13, 2022

After a few openings paragraphs where Holan pretends that her writers perform research and make an effort to get to the truth, she goes on to describe the “horrid abuse”  they’ve suffered, which seems to mostly just be people criticizing them on Twitter. The first example she gives is “Reporters have alerted a press secretary that we’re writing about their boss and simply asked for comment. Within minutes, she’s published the email and slammed the reporters as incompetent, while trying to rally an online mob to attack the reporters — who are just doing their jobs.”

This is a reference to Gov. Ron DeSantis’ Press Secretary Christina Pushaw. Back in May, reporter Yacob Reyes reached out to Pushaw for comment on the DeSantis’ recent claim that almost 60% of outstanding student loan debt is graduate school debt. “Hello, I am writing a fact-check on a quick deadline following Gov. Ron DeSantis claim: ‘The student debt that it out there, almost 60% of it is graduate school debt.’ If you would like to provide supporting material for the claim, I would need to hear by 9 p.m. Meanwhile, I’ll be continuing my own research and interviews” he wrote in an email to Pushaw.

Pushaw fired back at Reyes; “Hi Yacob, your own employer, Poynter [which owns Politifact], recently published research about this topic finding that 56% of outstanding student debt is owed by households that hold graduate degrees. I think 56% qualifies as ‘almost 60%.’ Thanks.”

Florida fact-checking fail of the day @PolitiFact pic.twitter.com/3sshvJc402

— Christina Pushaw 🐊 🇺🇸 (@ChristinaPushaw) May 3, 2022

And thus, the reality of an incompetent fact checker stepping on a rake is instantly reframed as “harassment” by Holan.

Reyes was also the PolitiFact writer who infamously attempted to fact check Maria Bartiromo’s statement that “We have doubled our oil imports from Russia in the last year,” rating the claim mostly false, stating “The U.S. did not double oil imports from Russia in the last year.” Then two paragraphs into his article, Reyes writes that “The U.S. did double the amount of crude oil imported from Russia last year. But Russia accounts for only about 3% of overall U.S. crude oil imports in 2021.”

PolitiFact’s editor in chief Holan then complains, quite hilariously in light of the evidence above, that “Reporters were singled out individually as being unfit for their jobs. They’ve been vilified for not having advanced credentials or specialized academic degrees…They’ve been told over and over that they should be fired for incompetence. In reality, their credentials are entirely appropriate for journalism, their reporting was factually valid, and the published fact-checks were solid and without error. For the record, they’re in zero danger of being fired.”

Holan then turns to complaining about a familiar face, who has since become public enemy #1 to their alleged fact checking operation:

One of PolitiFact’s primary attackers of late has been Dan Bongino, a talk show host popular on social media. His chief talking points are conspiracy theories that the 2020 election was stolen and attacks on COVID-19 prevention measures such as masking. It’s not really a surprise that he hates fact-checkers; he’s said it’s an insult to be called a journalist. Bongino’s criticism of us have come after we fact-check his posts through Facebook’s third-party fact-checking program; that program works to reduce the influence of posts that include misinformation and conspiracy theories.

Like many other online attackers, Bongino has misrepresented our findings, the scope of our reporting, and the points our fact-checks have made. He’s also falsely described corrections we’ve made after publication as proof of the illegitimacy of our work.

PolitiFact has yet to name a single thing that was misrepresented by us, and we’ve published quote a bit documenting their countless screwups:

• Dimwitted Fact Checker: Stacey Abrams Didn’t Support MLB Boycott She Helped Cause
• Fact Checker Tries to Debunk Study Proving Masks Didn’t Work in Europe, Fails Miserably
• PolitiFact “Fact Checker” Learns His Employer Is Source Of Claim He’s Trying to Debunk
• Reality Blows Up Claims of PolitiFact “Fact Checker” During Rittenhouse Trial
• PolitiFact Botches Fact Check on Maxine Waters Inciting Violence
• PolitiFact’s “Fact Check” of Winsome Sears Fails to Correctly Check Facts
• PolitiFact Faceplants With Hilariously Bad “Fact Check” of Maria Bartiromo
• PolitiFAIL: PolitiFact Confuses Two Government Agencies in Embarrassing “Fact Check”
• PolitiFact Lazily Fact Checks Opinion Statement, Fails
• Politifact Tries and Fails Fact Checking Claim That California Has Six Extra Representatives Due to Illegals
• Fact Checker Redefines Words to Silence Biden Critics
• PolitiFact’s Worst Fact Checker Plays Defense for VP Harris – Fails Miserably

If they can find an error in any of those they’re free to let us know.

Matt Palumbo is the author of The Man Behind the Curtain: Inside the Secret Network of George Soros

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