One of the things that bothers me even as Fact Checking has - thankfully - become more prevalent over the past few years is when campaigns/candidates IGNORE the fact checkers publicly calling them out on their falsehoods or misrepresentations. If anything, it got worse in the last election cycle and the trend is showing signs of continuing.
So, Arizona's Politics is going to try to do its part to continue holding false-tellers' feet to the fire. We will try to follow-up on the most egregious misrepresentations to see if and how it has been remedied. If you have any suggestions for this series, please comment below or e-mail to info-at-arizonaspolitics-dot-com.
On September 4, the Arizona Republic did a "Fact Check" piece, finding that legislative candidate Jeff Dial (Repub., LD20) had posted FALSE information on his website. On September 15, Arizona's Politics did a "Fact Check Follow-Up," noting that even 11 days after the Republic's one-star, false rating, Mr. Dial had not corrected the false language (while praising him for the positive approach the rest of his issues statements took). No response.
In the unlikely event that Mr. Dial did not learn of the Republic's verdict, Arizona's Politics left multiple voice and e-mail messages for him. We asked him to either respond or to let us know when the website was made accurate, so that we could inform our readers and the general public. Those messages have gone unanswered. On September 27, another follow-up was posted and messages left.
We regretfully report that - as of 8:00a.m., Wed. October 20 - Mr. Dial has STILL not corrected the website.
However, until we hear from Mr. Dial (please e-mail/phone/Tweet/snail mail/whatever), we have to award him another "F" for "Failing to correct". This brings his report card to FOUR "F's" in a row.
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