St. Petersburg Times and CQ's PolitiFact.com Wins Edgie Award for Best Overall
News Site
PolitiFact tops washingtonpost.com and StarTribune.com as best large-newspaper
site
WASHINGTON, March 7 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- PolitiFact, the fact-checking
Web site of the St. Petersburg Times and Congressional Quarterly, was recently
named "Best Overall News Site" for newspapers with a circulation of more than
250,000, beating out the Web sites of The Washington Post and the
(Minneapolis) Star Tribune. This Digital Edge Award, or Edgie, is one of the
2008 Media Innovation Awards sponsored by the Newspaper Association of
America. The St. Petersburg Times, a six-time winner of the Pulitzer Prize,
and CQ, the nation's premier provider of news and analysis on Congress,
politics and public policy, launched PolitiFact on Sept. 4, 2007.
PolitiFact (www.politifact.com) is a Web site that helps voters separate fact
from fiction in the claims made during the 2008 presidential campaign. Times
Washington bureau chief Bill Adair, who originally conceived of the site,
works with Times government and politics editor Scott Montgomery and in tandem
with more than a dozen members of the award-winning staffs of CQ and the Times
to produce the database-driven site. Together, the PolitiFact team checks the
accuracy of speeches, TV ads, interviews and other candidate claims and
communications.
"It seems our bold 'gimme the truth' approach has paid off," said Neil Brown,
executive editor and vice president of the Times. "We are very grateful to the
NAA for this award that supports our belief that people are hungry for the
plain truth -- without the spin. PolitiFact gives them the ability to make
informed decisions when they head into the voting booth."
The site features a "Truth-O-Meter" that scores the truthfulness of specific
claims by the presidential candidates. Editors investigate the facts behind
the statements and assign a credibility score: true, mostly true, half-true,
barely true, false, and a special category for the most ridiculous claims
called "pants on fire." There is also the "Attack File" -- a home for the
attacks candidates' campaigns make against one another, plus those from
outside sources such as bloggers and political action committees.
"This is the most exciting presidential race in our lifetime," said Mike
Riley, senior vice president and editor of CQ Publications. "The digital age
has allowed the American public to be more engaged than ever in truly
understanding the candidates by having access to the facts. We are thrilled to
be a part of this revolutionary awakening."
About the Publishers
The St. Petersburg Times is Florida's largest newspaper with a circulation of
324,899 daily and 430,893 Sunday (ABC publisher's statement Mar. 31, 2007).
Considered one of the top ten newspapers in the country with six Pulitzer
Prizes to its name, the Times is one of the nation's last and largest
independents.
With more than 150 reporters, editors and researchers covering Capitol Hill
and Washington, Congressional Quarterly keeps its readers updated in print and
online on a weekly, daily and real-time basis. CQ's readership includes
nearly every member of Congress as well as Executive Branch officials, leaders
in business and associations, top academic institutions and important media
outlets. For more information, visit HYPERLINK "http://www.cq.com/"
www.cq.com or HYPERLINK "http://www.cqpolitics.com/" www.cqpolitics.com.
Both the Times and CQ are affiliates of the Times Publishing Company, which is
owned by the Poynter Institute, a center for journalism education.
SOURCE Congressional Quarterly
Scott Montgomery, +1-727-893-8145, smontgomery@sptimes.com; or Bill Adair,
+1-202-463-0575, badair@sptimes.com, both of the St. Petersburg Times; or
Janet Donovan, +1-202-904-1035, ceiinfo@erols.com, for the Congressional
Quarterly
