Snopes (indirectly) calls out PolitiLie

On twiX (X, formerly known as Twitter) I learned today that Snopes now calls it false that Donald Trump called neo-Nazis and white supremacists "very fine people."

Better late than never! And extra sweet in that we have yet another opportunity to pit fact checkers against each other. That's because PolitiFact, despite initially dodging the issue with an "In Context" feature, later dropped the context and helped spread the "very fine people" lie:

As president in 2017, Trump said there were "very fine people, on both sides," in reference to neo-Nazis and counterprotesters in Charlottesville, Va.

It's notable that the hotlink in the quotation goes right to PolitiFact's "In Context" article, suggesting the neutral-ish article was a dog whistle telling readers, yes, Trump called neo-Nazis and white supremacists "very fine people." 

The more recent article, which superficially gave President Biden a "False" rating for saying no U.S. president before Trump was racist was actually giving Biden a "True" rating for saying Trump is a racist. PolitiFact used the remarks about Charlottesville in making its case that Trump is a racist.

Also of note, my Zebra Fact Check project reported this case as an error to PolitiFact back in July 2020. When PolitiFact made no correction I eventually reported the case to the International Fact-Checking Network and a failure to uphold its standards. Again, no change resulted in PolitiFact's reporting.

The Poynter Institute owns both the International Fact-Checking Network and PolitiFact, of course.