Wednesday, June 29, 2016

Poynter hides criticism of PolitiFact's transparency?

The Poynter Institute, a journalism school in St. Petersburg, Florida, owns our reason for existence, PolitiFact. I sometimes read articles posted at Poynter, particularly those concerned with fact-checking.

Up through today, I believe Poynter has published every comment I have made.

Poynter re-published the guidelines for fact-checking written by PolitiFact editor Angie Drobnic Holan. I had responded to Holan's PolitiFact article with one of my own published to Medium. At the Poynter website I commented about one of my central points of rebuttal: PolitiFact's claims of accountability to the public can't be taken seriously so long as a story from PolitiFact Missouri from earlier this year sustains its train-wreck status (and it does sustain that status).


I captured the above image right after pushing the button to publish my comment. Note the message that the comment is pending approval. When I visited the page later, I was still able to see evidence I had commented and the comment was pending approval. I was also able to review the content of the yet-to-be-published comment.

Now, when I return to the page, no evidence remains of my comment activity.




Is it possible that the comment remains in moderation and Poynter will publish it later? Sure, that's possible. We will certainly update this item if Poynter publishes the comment.

Meanwhile, here is our message to PolitiFact and the Poynter Institute:

Hiding a problem of transparency does not address that problem of transparency.


 
Update June 30, 2016:

 

Pending for 11 hours. Shall we go for 36?

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