Internet Rumor Checkers

(from "All the News That's Fit to Post. Or Is It?: Quality Information and the Social Web," Searcher, June 2011, pp. 20-28. http://www.infotoday.com/searcher/jun11/Herther.shtml)

Barbara and David Mikkelson are on a mission. They created and now maintain Snopes, one of the premier sites tracking internet rumors today. Profiled in a New York Times article (“Debunkers of Fictions Sift the Net,” April 4, 2010 [http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/05/technology/05snopes.html]), the seeming futility of their mission was well-summarized in this quote by Barbara Mikkelson: “Well, we have to get out there and defend the truth. When you’re looking at truth versus gossip, truth doesn’t stand a chance.”
That assessment may be overly grim. Today there are many websites dedicated to tracking down the truth behind rumors, gossip, hoaxes, and urban legends. Here are a few of the best:

FactCheck.org

http://www.factcheck.org
A project of the Annenberg Public Policy Center, FactCheck.org allows you to track rumors or to “Ask FactCheck” to get the low-down on rumors.

PolitiFact.com

http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter
Winner of a Pulitzer in 2009, the site covers the web with news, articles, and a “Truth-O-Meter” to check rumors as they arrive.

Fact Checker (The Washington Post)

http://blog.washingtonpost.com/fact-checker
From Michael Dobbs, this site ended with the November 2008 elections. The site used a rating system of 0-5 Pinocchios to rank the truthfulness of statements made during the Obama/McCain campaign.

Snopes.com

http://www.snopes.com
Subtitled “rumor has it,” this site covers the waterfront from the arts to business to religion to politics.

Columbia Journalism Review (CJR)

http://www.cjr.org/index.php
With the subtitle of “strong press, strong democracy,” CJR provides coverage of events, rumors, and other aspects of discourse in our wired life.

MediaMatters

http://mediamatters.org/tags/issues
This site covers the media, major personalities, and programs, “documenting conservative misinformation throughout the media.” You can search or browse by subject area.

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