Factcheck Asks You To Check Them Out!

Already some good karma from Webcred. I’ve received a request for input and advice about FactCheck.org, a fact-checking site made famous during the Presidential debates (when Cheney made reference to it). Now this excellent site is looking for advice on how to do their job better. You can post your suggestions here, or reach Brooks Jackson of Factcheck.org directly at bjackson at appcpenn.org.

Here’s more info. Thanks in advance!

“FactCheck.org is a project of the Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania, a nonpartisan, nonprofit ‘consumer advocate for voters.’ We seek to hold politicians accountable for false or misleading factual claims, and to help voters sort through the misinformation that typically clouds a national election campaign. We will continue to monitor the debate on key national issues during 2005, and the major themes that emerge in the congressional elections of 2006. … Our very simple website attracted far more attention and traffic than we ever envisioned when we launched it in December of 2003, thanks in part to a prominent mention by Vice President Cheney during his debate with John Edwards, and to heavy, positive mention in national media outlets. As election day neared, our daily traffic fluctuated between 80,000 and 200,000 unique visitors per day, depending on whether we had posted any new articles. Our email subscriber list grew to 73,000 persons. We now plan to retool the site for the next four years, adding more robust hosting, better organization by subject matter, and new content areas. Those include a guide to sources of information, a ‘mailbox’ feature where we answer selected questions from our users, and a section devoted to explaining some of the terms and concepts commonly used by Washington policy-makers and often poorly understood by the public. We also are thinking about adding material aimed at possible classroom use by high-school and college teachers, who make up a big part of our audience.”