PolitiFact expands to New Hampshire

PolitiFact, the Pulitzer Prize-winning fact-checking website, is expanding to New Hampshire in a new partnership with the Valley News and The Telegraph of Nashua.

The newspapers are partnering with us to publish fact-checking articles on presidential candidates, political parties and other groups that make claims during the New Hampshire campaign.

Reporters from the Valley News and The Telegraph will research and write articles that will use PolitiFact’s Truth-O-Meter to rate the accuracy of claims. They will be published in the papers and on a special New Hampshire page of our site.

In addition to publishing their own New Hampshire fact-checks, the Valley News and The Telegraph will be able to publish other Truth-O-Meter items and articles from PolitiFact’s extensive coverage of the campaign.

“When presidential candidates race through New Hampshire every four years, we face the challenge of separating fact from spin for our readers,” said Jeff Good, editor of the Valley News. “The beauty of PolitiFact is that it gives voters a way to answer an important question: Is this candidate telling the truth?”

Jonathan Van Fleet, metro editor of The Telegraph, said, “We’ve been big fans of PolitiFact and their Truth-O-Meter rulings for a long time,” said “Our readers love it when we give them stories that uncover half-truths, inaccuracies or outright lies. We expect this partnership with Politifact to offer exactly that.”

PolitiFact.com was launched in 2007 to fact-check the presidential campaign. In 2009, the site began fact-checking pundits and talk show hosts and created a new feature, the Obameter, to track President Obama’s 500-plus campaign promises. It has received numerous awards, including the 2009 Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting.

The site is a product of the St. Petersburg Times, Florida’s largest newspaper, with an average circulation of 429,048 Sunday and 292,441 daily (ABC FAS-FAX March 2011). Considered one of the top ten newspapers in the country, the St. Petersburg Times has eight Pulitzer Prizes to its name.

The Valley News is a family-owned daily covering the Upper Valley region of New Hampshire and Vermont, which includes Dartmouth College and the communities of Hanover, Lebanon and Claremont.

The Telegraph is the state’s second largest daily newspaper, covering the Nashua area.