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How does PolitiFact Georgia’s Truth-O-Meter work?
Our goal is to help you find the truth in American politics. Reporters from The Atlanta Journal-Constitution fact-check statements by local, state and national political leaders, including lobbyists and interest groups. We then rate them on the AJC Truth-O-Meter.
To fact-check a claim, reporters first contact the speaker to verify the statement. Next, the research begins. Reporters consult a variety of sources, including industry and academic experts. This research can take hours or a few days or even longer, depending on the claim. Reporters then compile the research into story form and include a recommended Truth-O-Meter ruling.
The fact check then moves on to a panel of veteran editors who debate the statement and the reporter’s recommended Truth-O-Meter ruling. The panel votes on a final ruling; majority prevails.
Fact-checkers at PolitiFact and PolitiFact Georgia were busy checking statements last week on topics from law enforcement deaths to a claim by Donald Trump that Hillary Clinton started the birther movement that many believe he perpetuated.
PolitiFact Georgia continued to check the latest vaccine claims. And we profiled another of the long list of Republican presidential candidates, U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina.
Abbreviated versions of our fact checks are below.
Full versions can be found at www.politifact.com/georgia/.
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Casey Cagle in a press release on September 8th, 2015
“Eighty-three law enforcement officers have died in the line of duty this
year. Twenty-four of them were shot and killed in cold blood.”
In the days leading up to the 14th anniversary of the terrorist attacks, Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle called on Georgians to stop to reflect on the critical role that law enforcement officers play in our communities.
“Eighty-three law enforcement officers have died in the line of duty this
year, ” Cagle said in the statement issued Sept. 8. “Twenty-four of them were
shot and killed in cold blood.”
Those are sobering national statistics, but are they accurate.
PolitiFact decided to check.
We contacted Ben Fry, Cagle’s chief of staff, who said the numbers came from
the Officer Down Memorial Page, a privately run website and a resource that Fry said was recommended by the Georgia Sheriffs Association.
We found the data at the website accurate, constantly updated and consistent with what others reported.
We rate Cagle’s statement True.
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Ben Carson on Wednesday, September 16th, 2015 in the second GOP debate
There are a “multitude” of vaccines that do not prevent deadly and crippling diseases.
During the second GOP debate, Dr. Ben Carson backed up previous PolitiFact rulings when he said there is no correlation between vaccines and autism.
But the retired pediatric neurosurgeon kept going and prompted another fact-check on the topic when he suggested that there are a “multitude” of vaccines that might not be necessary.
“Vaccines are very important. Certain ones,” Carson said. “The ones that would prevent death or crippling. There are others, there are a multitude of vaccines which probably don’t fit in that category, and there should be some discretion in those cases.”
We contacted Carson’s campaign to see what vaccines he meant and his source but did not receive a response.
Based on context, in which the candidates were talking about the shots given to children, we decided to look at the vaccines on the childhood schedule supported by the American Academy of Pediatrics and our neighbors at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The CDC recommends a series of shots to protect children against 15 infectious diseases; measles, mumps, rubella, chicken pox, hepatitis A, hepatitis B, diphtheria, tetanus, whooping cough, Human papillomavirus (HPV), Haemophilus influenzae type B (Hib), polio, influenza (flu), rotavirus, and pneumococcal disease.
All of these are universally lethal, except rubella, and it is a disfiguring disease that can lead to birth defects.
A medical doctor would surely know that.
We rated Carson’s claim False.
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Donald Trump on Tuesday, September 22nd, 2015 in a tweet
“The birther movement was started by Hillary Clinton in 2008. She was all in!”
Call it ricochet politics. First, a questioner at a New Hampshire rally for Donald Trump repeats the lie that President Barack Obama is a Muslim. Trump fails to correct him and faces a round of questions as to why he didn’t. Then the host of NBC’s Meet the Press asks Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson if it would be okay to have a Muslim president, and Carson said, “I absolutely would not agree with that.”
This prompts Hillary Clinton to tweet, “Can a Muslim be President of the United States of America? In a word: Yes. Now let’s move on.”
Then Trump responds with a tweet of his own. “Just remember, the birther movement was started by Hillary Clinton in 2008. She was all in!”
The birther movement refers to the long-running myth that Obama was not born in the United States and thus, under the Constitution, could not be president. Trump promoted this belief avidly for several years with anyone who would listen. This week, Trump told Late Show host Stephen Colbert that he doesn’t “talk about it anymore.”
Did Clinton not just start the birther movement but back it wholeheartedly by being “all in”?
Trump completely distorted the chain of events by claiming Clinton “was all in” on the birther movement. Most of the talk started after Clinton suspended her 2008 presidential campaign. And the only thing she officially has ever done is deny any accusation of starting a whisper campaign.
We rated Trump’s claim False.
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