Check your (political) facts
While truth-in-advertising rules apply to business advertisements, what about political advertising? Nope. That's why its a good thing that there are people out there, willing to check the facts, and provide voters and viewers with important background information. Check out Factcheck.org . A project of the Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania, Factcheck.org keeps tabs on claims and statements made by politicians and political candidates, monitoring "the factual accuracy of what is said by major U.S. political players in the form of TV ads, debates, speeches, interviews, and news releases." Their postings offer a summary of the peice in question (an ad, speech, or the most recent round of debates), provide an analysis of the facts in questions, and cite their sources. NPR recently featured a piece with Factcheck.org directors, Brooks Jackson and Kathleen Hall Jamieson. Listen here .