Politifact mulls New Zealand expansion and diversification
Political fact-checking website Politifact Australia is considering diversification into non-political areas at the same time as eyeing other territories in the wake of the September Federal election.
Peter Fray, editor-in-chief of Politifact, has told Encore that he is looking at other verticals where the fact-checking service can be applied or may alternatively look to set up a New Zealand offshoot of the Australian operation. Fray told Encore: “We have another three state elections next year and an election in New Zealand. We have the licence for New Zealand and I would be interested in seeing if we could get across the ditch.”
The original Politifact is a US project from The Tampa Bay Times. Fray – a former publisher and editor-in-chief of the Sydney Morning Herald who took redundancy from Fairfax Media last year – launched the site in May.
Another option would be for Politifact to move into other areas of fact-checking such as health or nutrition. “The other question is, could you put some other word in front of fact like ‘healthfact’ or ‘foodfact’? That is certainly where my thinking is,” he said.
