Rebecca keeps a useful list of antidotes to the special-interest spin in which everything seems to be drenched these days:
Snopes is an old favourite, hunters of urban legends (now in 41 flavours) since 1995. They include “common fallacies, misinformation, old wives’ tales, strange news stories, rumors, celebrity gossip, and similar items” in their expansive definition of “urban legend”. The site is maintained as a hobby by Barbara and David Mikkelson; they take some advertising (they say they have no direct contact with the advertisers, and appear to take ads only through Burst!Media) and accept donations. Of particular interest in these days of Democratic Primaries and Looming Federal Elections is their politics page.
Spinsanity is the creation of Ben Fritz, Bryan Keefer and Brendan Nyhan, all of whom disclose activity and affiliations with “Democratic and progressive politics”. It’s not clear where (other than their own pockets) they get the money for the site; the site is an Amazon affiliate and they accept donations.
FactCheck.org is a project of the Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania and accepts no funding from “business corporations, labor unions, political parties, lobbying organizations or individuals”. Their mission is to “monitor the factual accuracy of what is said by major U.S. political players in the form of TV ads, debates, speeches, interviews, and news releases.”
The Columbia Journalism Review’s Campaign Desk offers political reality checks by medium, angle (Fact Check, Hidden Angle, Local Story, Echo Chamber, Money Trail, Spin Reducer, Distortion, Tip of the Hat and Cheap Shot), issue or candidate. Their stated goal is “to straighten and deepen campaign coverage almost as it is being written and produced” and they focus “not on what politicians say and do, but on how the press is presenting (or not presenting) the political story”. No mention of funding sources.