Lai Kwan Yee and Wong Man Ching
I couldn’t imagine a job that would be more fun than being a journalist
“I felt like we have let the White House and other candidates for office get away with falsehoods,” Adair said, and that he was motivated to create the PolitiFact, a fact-checking website.
Bill Adair, Pulitzer Prize winner for National Reporting 2009, and Washington Bureau Chief for the Tampa Bay Times, shared his experiences in journalism with some would-be journalists in a public forum hosted by the Department of Journalism of the Communication School, Hong Kong Baptist University last month.
In 2007, Adair proposed a website dedicated to fact-checking politicians.
The main reason to establish the PolitiFact was that the majority of American newspapers tend to put more emphasis on making the newspapers profitable than doing great journalist job.
“And one thing was that as a reporter, you might just report what they say, and we need somebody else to know whether it is true or not,” he said.
Adair explained the second reason was that a lot of his friends were getting out of journalism, because they saw that with the internet, journalists were going through very painful years.
“I decided to stay in because I couldn’t imagine a job that would be more fun than being a journalist.”
“What really drives me as a journalist is that I feel like I have a license to be curious,” and to cover in the White House or in others.
“That’s why I’d love to be a journalist because I am a very curious person.”
His goal is to breakaway from traditional story forms, and use cell phones, Smartphones, iPhones and apps to get news.
Two apps of PolitiFact had been created. One is called as PolitiFact Mobile, another is the Truth-O-Meter. It is from the taunt “Liar, liar, pants on fire”.
He said people love to go to the page of “pants on fire”. It enhances storytelling and tries to invent new forms of journalism like the Truth-O-Meter.
Adair had taken a statement by a politician to research it and rate it from “truth” to “pants on fire”.
“Mostly false is very subjective and this is why we get a lot of feedback. Sometimes people like our ratings, sometimes they don’t. And a lot of them disagree with us and email us and say ‘Hey! You guys are wrong with this one.’
“But we feel it is important to do this. It’s engaging and fun.”
