Politifact Uses Fast-Food Techniques to Spread Its Approach

Poynter.org's Steve Myers has a good piece on the growing success of Politifact, the St. Petersburg Times Pulitzer Prize-winning Web site that scrutinizes political statements and claims.

He notes Politifact Editor Bill Adair has already helped another version launch in Texas at the Austin American-Statesman and is currently aiding other newspapers in several states as they seek to copy the approach.

The key, Adair tells him, is to take the fast-food franchise method and apply it to fact-checking.

“In thinking about how to ensure consistency and standards across the site, Adair said he took a lesson from the fast-food industry,” Myers writes. “The key to making a hamburger that tastes like one hundreds of miles away: training.”

So give me some truth-telling, with a side of fries.