Announcing PolitiFact Florida!

The Truth-O-Meter has come to Florida.

The St. Petersburg Times and the Miami Herald today are launching PolitiFact Florida, a partnership that uses our Pulitzer Prize-winning fact-checking approach to examine the 2010 campaigns in the Sunshine State.

PolitiFact Florida uses the same journalistic approach and design as our national site. It is integrated with the national site and uses our Truth-O-Meter to rate the accuracy of statements by candidates, elected officials and political parties.

Initially, the Florida site will focus on the 2010 campaigns, but we also plan to examine statements by state and local officials as they govern. You can follow it on Twitter and Facebook.

PolitiFact Florida is an expansion of the partnership between the Times and Herald, which merged Tallahassee bureaus in December 2008. Both newspapers publish the work of the combined, six-person team.

Neil Brown, executive editor of the Times, said the PolitiFact Florida partnership may eventually be expanded to include other newspapers and television and radio stations in the state.

“PolitiFact provides a great public service by holding elected officials accountable for what they say,” said Brown. “We’d like to see it in every corner of the state.”

Said Anders Gyllenhaal, executive editor of the Herald: “Readers can expect a regular supply of straight-shooting, fact-check stories.”

The Florida site is PolitiFact’s second move into state and local politics. PolitiFact Texas, a partnership with the Austin American-Statesman, launched in January.

Brown said the ultimate goal is a national network of fact-checking sites. “We believe every public official in America should have to face the Truth-O-Meter.”