In the U.S. Senate race between Democrat incumbent Sherrod Brown and Republican challenger Josh Mandel, a PolitiFact Ohio narrative – that Mandel is a ridiculous liar – has taken center stage, aided by reporters who treat PolitiFact Ohio as an objective source and ignore proof of the publication’s liberal bias.
Evidence presented by Media Trackers shows that PolitiFact Ohio, the “fact checking” arm of the ClevelandPlain Dealer, leans left. PolitiFact Ohio is staffed by liberal journalists who produce skewed analysis of political statements and advertise their work as unbiased despite flawed, opinion-driven processes.
Media Trackers has debunked the string of three PolitiFact Ohio “Pants on Fire” rulings Tom Feran assigned to Josh Mandel this summer. Feran is not the only PolitiFact Ohio “fact checker” whose rulings betray a liberal bias, but his work represents the most glaring testament to the outlet’s leftward slant.
In June, Feran gave Sherrod Brown a pass for his support of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) by ruling as “Pants on Fire” a Mandel statement that “Brown gave huge bonuses to executives,” although many executives at companies funded by ARRA received huge bonuses.
In July, Feran ignored all evidence except a single year of Congressional Budget Office tax revenue and GDP estimates in order to declare a Mandel claim that the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act “will likely go down as the biggest tax increase in history” another “Pants on Fire” lie.
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