The Washington Free Beacon reviewed political donations over the past four election cycles using the Federal Elections Commission database from those who identified their occupation as “fact checker.” They found $22,580 of the $22,683 in political donations that came from self-identified fact checkers during that time—a whopping 99.5 percent—went to Democrats and liberal groups. Only three of the fact checker donations made during that period went to Republicans.
Robert Schmad of the Free Beacon reported top recipients include socialist Vermont senator Bernie Sanders, “who during the seven-year period received ten times more fact checker money than every Republican combined.”
We should stipulate that not every self-identified “fact checker” on the FEC list works for a fact-checking group. Some might be fact checkers at newspapers and magazines or TV shows. Dillon Fernando was a “fact checker” for….Full Frontal with Samantha Bee. A search for “fact checker” at OpenSecrets brings up Alice Markham-Cantor of Brooklyn, whose Twitter bio says she’s a fact checker for New York magazine (now owned by Vox Media) and “writing a book on witch hunts (real ones) // abortion doula // unapologetic icarus apologist.”
But there were “news” media line items as well:
Fact checkers for the New York Times and Reuters, for example, contributed to President Joe Biden, failed South Carolina Democratic Senate candidate Jaime Harrison, and liberal Massachusetts senator Elizabeth Warren’s presidential campaign.
The Times fact checker, Cecilia Nowell, contributed three times to Warren’s failed presidential bid from 2019 to 2020 and still accepts “fact-checking assignments” from the outlet on a freelance basis, according to her LinkedIn. Reuters, meanwhile, from 2020 to 2021 employed Carrie Monahan, daughter of veteran journalist Katie Couric, as a “fact check producer.” Monahan during that time contributed to Biden, Harrison, and Georgia Democratic senator Jon Ossoff….
In addition to the New York Times and Reuters, federal disclosures reviewed by the Free Beacon show that fact checkers at Appen Global, a data management firm that Facebook contracted in 2019 to help build its fact checking infrastructure, donate exclusively to Democrats. Recipients include Sanders, Warren, and Progressive Takeover, a group that’s “dedicated to mobilizing the Democratic Party.”
The Free Beacon contacted Appen Global to ask how they vet fact checkers for potential biases but did not hear back. The Times also failed to return a request for comment, while Reuters told the Free Beacon it doesn’t “comment on current or past newsroom staffers.”