# PolitiFact **PolitiFact** is the fact-checking operation of the nonprofit Poynter Institute. It is known for the Truth-O-Meter and its annual "Lie of the Year." It is a principal node in the [[Fact-Checking]] infrastructure and, for the same reason, a principal target of the right's "fact-checkers are the real liars" counter-narrative (see [[The Fallacy Playbook of Right-Wing Media]]). ## History - **2007:** founded by the *St. Petersburg Times* (now the *Tampa Bay Times*), at first as a six-month project for the 2008 primaries. - **2009:** the Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting, for checking more than 750 claims during the 2008 campaign. - **February 12, 2018:** moved from the for-profit *Times*, itself owned by Poynter, into the nonprofit Poynter Institute, so that donations became tax-deductible. **Lie of the Year.** The first, in 2009, was [[Sarah Palin]]'s "death panels." In 2024 it was Trump and Vance's claim that Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio were "eating the pets." In December 2025 PolitiFact gave up on picking one and named 2025 "the Year of the Lies." ## The Meta money PolitiFact was an original partner in Meta's third-party fact-checking program from December 2016. On **January 7, 2025**, two weeks before Trump's inauguration, Mark Zuckerberg announced the end of the U.S. program in favor of user-written community notes, and it shut down on April 7, 2025. Editor-in-chief Katie Sanders called Meta "one of our largest revenue streams," money that had "helped expand our staff." Fox News, citing PolitiFact's disclosures, put it at more than 5% of 2024 revenue (one source). Poynter's president, Neil Brown, replied to the censorship framing directly: "Facts are not censorship. Fact-checkers never censored anything." No PolitiFact layoffs were reported through 2026. ## The pressure campaign - **Visas.** A State Department directive in December 2025 told consular officers to deny work visas to foreign applicants "responsible for, or complicit in, censorship," a category that explicitly includes fact-checkers and trust-and-safety staff. It does not name PolitiFact, but it targets the international network Poynter runs. Poynter's International Fact-Checking Network objected. - **Media critics.** The Media Research Center's NewsBusters runs a continuing campaign alleging PolitiFact bias against Republicans (for example, September 2026). No congressional subpoena or FTC action against PolitiFact was found. ## See Also - [[Fact-Checking]] · [[Snopes]] · [[The Fallacy Playbook of Right-Wing Media]] · [[Meta]] · [[Sarah Palin]]