PolitiFact Expands with Partnership in Texas

Public officials in Texas will face PolitiFact’s distinctive Truth-O-Meter™ under a partnership with the Austin American-Statesman. The partnership is the first in a national network of affiliate sites using PolitiFact’s reader-friendly design. The Times has opened affiliate opportunities to news organizations in other states.

Washington (PRWEB) January 13, 2010

PolitiFact.com, the Pulitzer Prize-winning fact-checking Web site of the St. Petersburg Times, has launched a state site in Texas in a partnership with the Austin American-Statesman.

PolitiFact® Texas, which launched today and can be accessed online at http://www.politifact.com/texas, is written by reporters and editors from the Statesman. It is integrated with the national site and uses PolitiFact’s distinctive Truth-O-Meter™ to rate the accuracy of statements by public officials in Texas. Much of the site’s coverage will focus on the 2010 elections in Texas, particularly the race for governor.

The Texas partnership is the first in a national network of affiliate sites using PolitiFact’s reader-friendly design. The Times is offering affiliate opportunities to news organizations in other states.

“Our expansion in Texas continues the St. Petersburg Times’ commitment to PolitiFact as a promising new form of journalism that marries old-fashioned reporting with the power of the Web,” said Neil Brown, executive editor of the Times. “We believe every public official in America should have to face the Truth-O-Meter™.”

The PolitiFact® Texas team is led by veteran political writer Gardner Selby and includes writers Ciara O'Rourke and Meghan Ashford-Grooms. The Statesman will also publish the Truth-O-Meter™articles in its newsprint editions.

About PolitiFact
PolitiFact.com was launched in 2007 to fact-check the 2008 presidential campaign. In 2009, the site began fact-checking elected officials, lobbying groups, pundits and talk show hosts on issues such as climate change and health care. PolitiFact also launched the Obameter, a feature that tracks and rates more than 500 of President Barack Obama's campaign promises. The site has received numerous awards, including the 2009 Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting, the Digital Edge Award for Best Overall News Site from the Newspaper Association of America, a National Press Foundation award for online journalism, and a Knight Batten Award for Innovation in Journalism.

The site is a product of the St. Petersburg Times, Florida’s largest newspaper with an average circulation of 370,050 Sunday and 270,147 daily (ABC publisher’s statement 9/27/09). Considered one of the top 10 newspapers in the country, the newspaper has eight Pulitzer Prizes to its name, including two in 2009.

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