CNN’s “State of the Union” and FactCheck.org, the nonpartisan fact-checking site, have announced a new partnership to create a weekly online video series looking at claims made in the 2016 presidential campaign.
“State of the Union” anchor Jake Tapper will host the weekly videos, which are based on FactCheck.org’s reporting on the candidates’ statements.
The first video, posted Sept. 4, examined presidential candidate Donald Trump’s statements on birthright citizenship — the idea, as Tapper put it, “that even if your parents are in the United States illegally, you become a citizen at birth if you’re born in the United States.”
Trump said the policy doesn’t work that way in Mexico. “Well, actually, in Mexico,” Tapper said, “it does work that way. Mexican nationality is acquired by birth if someone is born within Mexican territory, according to Article 30 of the Mexican Constitution, ‘whatever their parents’ nationality might be.'” FactCheck.org recently posted a story on that claim by Trump.
Eugene Kiely, director of FactCheck.org, said of the new collaboration: “We are thrilled to partner with CNN and Jake Tapper for the 2016 campaign. This will help us fulfill our mission and reach more voters who want to cut through the political spin and get the facts.”
FactCheck.org, a project of the Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania, is a nonpartisan, nonprofit fact-checking organization that seeks to reduce the level of deception in politics and serve as a “consumer advocate” for voters. Founded in 2003 by Annenberg Public Policy Center director Kathleen Hall Jamieson and Brooks Jackson, a longtime political reporter, FactCheck.org paved the way for other independent media organizations that now subject political claims to similar scrutiny.
In April, for the second consecutive year, FactCheck.org was awarded the Webby for best Political Blog/Website by the International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences, as well as the People’s Voice Webby, voted by the public, in the same category. It is a six-time winner of the judges’ Webby award and an eight-time winner of the People’s Voice award.
See the first video with Jake Tapper here.
