FactCheck.org, a project of the Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania, describes itself as "a nonpartisan, nonprofit consumer advocate for voters that aims to reduce the level of deception in U.S. politics." This is a great source for credible information about elections.
AllSides "reveals all perspectives of news, opinions and topics while engaging all kinds of people in civil dialog and critical thinking." Users are advised to "break away from bias to get the full story."
The Pew Research Center presents the "numbers, facts and trends shaping your world." Its mission is to "generate a foundation of facts that enriches the public dialogue and supports sound decision-making. We are nonprofit, nonpartisan and nonadvocacy. We value independence, objectivity, accuracy, rigor, humility, transparency and innovation."
PolitiFact is a fact-checking website that rates the accuracy of claims by elected officials and others who speak up in American politics. PolitiFact is run by editors and reporters from the Tampa Bay Times, an independent newspaper in Florida, as is PunditFact, a site devoted to fact-checking pundits. The PolitiFact state sites are run by news organizations that have partnered with the Times. The state sites and PunditFact follow the same principles as the national site.
Depending upon your areas of knowledge, you’ll be bothered by different sorts of errors in print. …. Some errors are benign and … spotting errors can become something of a sport. ….
Some errors detract more seriously from the reputation of the writer, or at least, his or her credibility in the reader’s eyes. ….
Documenting real events is serious. The most interesting pieces are often the most difficult to confirm, and when checkers are unable to speak directly to sources, much of the burden of verification falls on the author. ….
The real trouble with errors, whether they are significant… is that they cause readers to become cynical. As Sara Lippincott, a former head of fact checking at the New Yorker, puts it, “A little skepticism … is much to be desired, but if it is fed over and over again with a diet of misinformation, it eventually becomes cynicism, which is a different thing entirely. Then we are turned off. Then we cease to listen to each other at all, and so the journalist is in danger of becoming extinct – or ignored, which amounts to the same thing.”
Source: The Fact Checker's Bible: A Guide to Getting It Right by Sarah Harrison Smith.
The Fact Checker's Bible by The purpose of the Washington Post's Fact Checker is to "truth squad the statements of political figures regarding issues of great importance, be they national, international, or local. As a presidential election approaches, we will increasingly focus on statements made in the heat of the presidential contest. But we will not be limited to political charges or countercharges. We will seek to explain difficult issues, provide missing context and provide analysis and explanation of various "code words" used by politicians, diplomats and others to obscure or shade the truth".
The website makeuseof.com says that Snopes is the best place to make sure you don't fall for an urban legend, folklore, myth, rumor, or other misinformation spread online. Snopes knows that coke will not dissolve your teeth, there is no law in Arizona specifically forbidding camel-hunting, the Great Wall of China is not the only man-made object visible from the moon, and much more.
It is worth noting that Snopes lists its sources at the end of every article. You can search with a few keywords and switch to advanced search if the results are not exactly what you are looking for.
