Bill Adair, Washington Bureau chief for the Times, will head PolitiFact.

As the paper explains, a dedicated team of reporters and researchers will “meticulously examine the rhetoric of candidates and their partisans, and then make a call: Is the claim true or not?”

The concept in itself is sound, directly useful to readers and citizens. Whether or not PolitiFact does a good job and remains neutral will be up to readers to decide.

Perhaps more discomforting is the fact that few – objective – news organizations systematically do this type of work in their regular coverage. This is made worse by the fact that the rhetorics of political discourse are also becoming more acute. So the Times doesn’t hesitate to call out the 'lazy' publications – granted, there’s also an element of self-promotion.  

“Many news organizations can spend less money and get less grief if their political reporting sticks to stenography and puffery,” writes the Times.

"News organizations are reluctant to get into this kind of thing because it takes an enormous commitment of resources," says Brooks Jackson, director of Factcheck.org.

“Even as we seek to reach customers in new ways, we see our primary obligation as helping citizens participate fully in the democratic process,” writes the Times.

But why oppose both clauses? Helping the democratic process and really serving the informational needs of citizens may be just what newspapers need to reach customers in ways that matter to them.

Source: St. Petersburg Times through Poynter Institute