You might not have the time to thoroughly read a fact-check of a politician’s statements, but a 90-second animated video with what appears to be an adorable and clumsy chicken might be harder to resist. That’s what the young professionals behind Pagella Politica, an Italian independent fact-checking project crowdfunding on Kickstarter, believe.
The group, whose work has been featured in the New York Times, The Economist, Le Iene and Il Corriere della Sera, recently launched the Kickstarter campaign “Pollock l’acchiappa-panzane” to raise funds for researching, drawing, producing and disseminating at least five animated 90-second fact-checking videos between September and December 2015. Their goal is to monitor statements by the main Italian politicians and fact-check them, before rating the statements on a scale from “True” to “Insane Whopper” (I can certainly think of a few politicians’ statements that would fit in the latter category).
As of Tuesday evening, the campaign was overfunding, having received $12,140 pledged of its $11,012 goal with 65 hours to go. Rewards range from receiving a preview of each video (€10) by email before it’s released, to choosing a political statement for the Pagella Politica team to fact check (€1,000). Of course, if you need a mug, those who contribute at the €100 level receive a personalized Pagella Politica mug with choice of their favorite Insane Whopper statement.
According to their Kickstarter campaign page, here are Pagella Politica’s expectations:
Each video we produce will be sent to the politician who has been fact-checked, and we will also post it on their social media. We will then ask the politician to correct him/herself publicly. Our goal is not to single out politicians, but to increase the cost of making bold but unfounded claims in public. We also hope that our short web-series will inspire other video-checking projects (both TV and online).
The group isn’t averse to being fact-checked themselves, and even includes an “Oops” page of their own published mistakes and corrections on their website.
Check out Pagella Politica’s Kickstarter campaign video below:
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