A new study found that one prominent fact-checker is giving President Joe Biden more leeway with misleading statements than former President Donald Trump was afforded. The Media Research Center (MRC) found that the fact-checker has offered minimal accountability for the Biden administration. Though they claim to not side with “any politician or party,” their work says otherwise.
Here's what the MRC had to say about PolitiFact in its report:
“A new study by the Media Research Center finds that four years ago, PolitiFact offered 52 fact checks with a 'Truth-O-Meter' ruling of Donald Trump in his first 100 days (January 20 to April 30, 2017), while in the same period this year, PolitiFact offered just 13 fact checks of President Biden...Perhaps the surprising measurement here is that the percentage of PolitiFact 'Truth-O-Meter' rating of Biden and Trump were the same – 61.5 percent. Trump just had four times as many evaluations. Thirty-two of 52 Trump evaluations were defined as 'Mostly False,' 'False,' or 'Pants on Fire.' Eight of 13 Biden evaluations landed on the False side. Biden had zero “Pants on Fire” ratings in the first 100 days. In 2017, Trump had two...Biden’s PolitiFact page shows he’s been put on the 'Truth-O-Meter' 169 times in the website’s history beginning in 2007, and was found to be on the True/Mostly True side 67 times (almost 40 percent) and Mostly False or worse 78 times (46 percent). By contrast, Donald Trump has 931 of these fact-checks, and 692 of them Mostly False or worse (74.3 percent). Trump has 161 'Pants on Fire' ratings. Biden has six.”
NEW STUDY: @PolitiFact much more likely to "fact check" Biden critics than Biden. https://t.co/ytrS6KMSKN
— NewsBusters (@newsbusters) May 4, 2021
Other fact-checkers, including The Washington Post, have awarded Biden negative ratings for blatantly false statements about Republican initiatives, including the newly-signed voting reform law in Georgia. Still, accountability for misleading statements is less present for Biden than for Trump.