It’s been a busy year for news so far with the 2024 presidential primary already underway. As we settle into spring, we thought we’d look back to see how we’re doing, at least in your eyes.
Here’s a selection of reader reactions to our recent fact-checks, edited for length, style and clarity. Readers can email us fact-check ideas and feedback at [email protected], or reach us via Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and TikTok.
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In February, PolitiFact New York fact-checked a claim by Rep. Elise Stefanik, R-N.Y., who said that a poll showed 53% of voters that were made aware of stories about the contents of Hunter Biden laptop, which surfaced just before the election in The New York Post would have voted differently in the 2020 presidential election.
We rated the claim False because the poll was limited to a Republican-leaning subset of people who were following the laptop story and already were unlikely to vote for Joe Biden. We wrote that 53% of the subset represented only 19.6% of Americans, making Stefanik’s statement inaccurate.
But a False rating wasn’t harsh enough for one reader, who wrote, "You were too generous by half with your story." The reader argued we didn’t adequately explain the "terrible polling questions" and said Stefanik’s statement was "completely dishonest and insincere."
"You must discuss ‘intent’ more. The intention with this poll was to mislead and deceive. And then Stefanik ignored that dishonest intent to continue with the disingenuous...
ALTON - Eric Sykes, the executive director of Alton Little Theater, recently took to social media to address “a narrative circulating online that Alton Little Theater is somehow an unsafe space.” ...