# Are there any statistics on the veracity of news sites?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-statistics-on-the-veracity-of-news-sites/454927
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [July 1, 2008, 5:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-statistics-on-the-veracity-of-news-sites/454927 "2008-07-01T17:35:54Z")
**Posts on this page:** 6
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Quartz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quartz)
#### Post date: [July 1, 2008, 5:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-statistics-on-the-veracity-of-news-sites/454927/1 "2008-07-01T17:35:54Z")
So I saw Fox referred to as Faux again. Unlike other misnamings (Torygraph for Telegraph, Grauniad for Guardian, for example), faux actually has a real meaning and it got me wondering if any statistics are kept on the veracity of all the news sites?
Please note that I’m not interested in biases - they’re **all** biased one way or the other - but in statistics of actual factual errors. Anyone got them?
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### Author:  [@muttrox](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/muttrox)
#### Post date: [July 1, 2008, 6:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-statistics-on-the-veracity-of-news-sites/454927/2 "2008-07-01T18:00:30Z")
Even restricting to actual factuals (I like that phrase), it’s difficult to measure objectively.
There are various sites that try to monitor factual errors, but I don’t know of any that actually attempt to score every factual statement and give statistical results. As you pointed out, there are many other issues (biases) that give the overall “truthiness” of a news site, it doesn’t seem like it would be worth the enormous effort to give a number that isn’t very useful.
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### Author:  [@Quartz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quartz)
#### Post date: [July 7, 2008, 4:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-statistics-on-the-veracity-of-news-sites/454927/3 "2008-07-07T16:06:02Z")
Bump. Anyone got actual info?
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### Author:  [@suranyi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/suranyi)
#### Post date: [July 7, 2008, 4:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-statistics-on-the-veracity-of-news-sites/454927/4 "2008-07-07T16:48:18Z")
[QUOTE=Quartz]
Bump. Anyone got actual info?
[/QUOTE]
How can anyone come up with something like that? All I can say is that in every case where I was personally familiar with the facts in a news article, the article got some things wrong. And that did not depend on the source of the article.
Ed
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### Author:  [@Duckster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Duckster)
#### Post date: [July 7, 2008, 4:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-statistics-on-the-veracity-of-news-sites/454927/5 "2008-07-07T16:51:21Z")
But what about the recent story where Fox News deliberately distorted the images of two New York Times reporters? Has any other “major” news outlet deliberately “lied” like this?
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### Author:  [@Cyberhwk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cyberhwk)
#### Post date: [July 7, 2008, 10:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-statistics-on-the-veracity-of-news-sites/454927/6 "2008-07-07T22:08:36Z")
[QUOTE=Duckster]
But what about the recent story where Fox News deliberately distorted the images of two New York Times reporters? Has any other “major” news outlet deliberately “lied” like this?
[/QUOTE]
[Here’s some.](http://www.famouspictures.org/mag/index.php?title=Altered_Images)