Hearst Television has renewed its alliance with PolitiFact, the Pulitzer Prize-winning fact-checking website of the Tampa Bay Times, the station group announce in April.
Hearst's election-year alliance with PolitiFact, launched in January 2012 and marking the first such national partnership between the fact-checking organization and a major TV station group, resulted in weekly fact-checking reports throughout the Hearst station group — in addition to regular local fact-checking segments independent of the PolitiFact partnership.
IN one recurring feature of the partnership, Hearst Television's Washington, D.C., bureau produced segments on PolitiFact's fact-checking about the presidential campaign using the website's "Truth-O-Meter."
Additionally, Hearst is launching a series of statewide town hall discussions, called "Leaders Listen," throughout New Hampshire. The events will feature New Hampshire politicians at all levels and will be live-streamed on WMUR.com and subsequently covered on WMUR-TV newscasts.
The series of off-election-year town halls is designed to let elected officials answer voters' questions. Separately, WMUR.com political director James Pindellwill provides "Watching Washington" reports, focusing on New Hampshire's Congressional delegation, every Thursday during the 5 p.m. news hour.
Hearst Television owns Manchester-based WMUR-TV, which is a regular co-host of the state's quadrennial presidential primary debates.
"Conventional wisdom may hold that television stations relax political news coverage during non-election years, but the reality is different," said David Barrett , Chairman and CEO of Hearst Television. "Increasingly, politics never sleeps, and television broadcasters do an outstanding job covering the issues year-in and year-out.”
The 2013 efforts come on the heels of Hearst's presidential election-year “Commitment 2012,” a project encompassing its 25 news-producing TV stations, and their respective local websites and mobile sites.
