UNC-Chapel Hill’s Media Hub is embarking on a fact-checking initiative that will focus on the race for North Carolina’s 9th Congressional District.
With five reporters, all from the School of Media and Journalism, UNC FactCheck aims to strike fairness in this highly watched election through reporting on speeches, online comments and other public statements – as well as using research to verify or debunk claims.
It’s a race that has already drawn accusations from both political parties and will be decided Sept. 10.
For many Republicans, Dan McCready’s support of abortion rights and health care make him a baby-killer who wants socialism to rule the country. If you listen to Democrats, Dan Bishop, who in 2016 helped author North Carolina’s infamous “Bathroom Bill,” is a tool of a Trump administration bent on edging the United States closer to a far-right autocracy.
So, how’d the district get to this point, and how is our effort going to keep a check on candidates for overstated and untrue claims? Or substantiate the ones that are true?
In September, a pair of special elections will be held in North Carolina for vacant congressional seats, in the 3rd and 9th districts. The 9th has drawn national attention following charges of voter fraud that wiped out an unofficial November win by Republican Mark Harris over McCready.
So, the 9th District – which includes all or parts of Mecklenburg, Union, Anson, Richmond, Scotland, Robeson, Cumberland and Bladen counties – has been without a representative since 2018.
Although
the 9th District seat had been in the possession of Republicans for
five-plus decades, McCready trailed Harris, a former pastor, by only 1,869 votes when he
conceded defeat less
than 24 hours after the polls closed Nov. 6. And while he was entitled to a recount,
McCready did not request one.
Three weeks later, though, things got bizarre. On Nov. 27, North Carolina’s
elections board first refused to certify
Harris as the winner of the election. By then, Harris led McCready by just
905 votes.
Reporters, politicians and others got suspicious and started digging. Within days, the Charlotte Observer reported about voting irregularities in Bladen County with absentee ballots, including a reference to an individual who remained at the center of the discussion about the district for months to come: McCrae Dowless.
Dowless, a contractor for a top Harris consultant and paid out of the Harris campaign, allegedly rigged the absentee ballot process to the point where, in Bladen County – where a high percentage of voters seemingly requested absentee ballots – Harris won 61% of Bladen’s absentee ballot count. This, despite 19% of the county’s accepted absentee ballots being Republican, The Observer reported.
While some argued the number of votes at play in the fraud claims couldn’t swing the election in McCready’s favor, the state’s elections board had the right to call for a new election. And it did, setting in motion of series of events that bring us to today.
McCready reversed his weeks-old decision to concede and in a Twitter post called for Harris “to end his silence and tell us exactly what he (knows), and when.”
Much chaos – the elections board being replaced, the head of elections in the state being pushed out – ensued. And, on May 14, a 10-person Republican field to run against McCready ended with Bishop snaring 47.7% of the vote.
All this was happening at a time of national political chaos marred by allegations on both sides of corrupted, even rigged, elections – chiefly the 2016 presidential election that sent Donald Trump to the Oval Office.
So, this is where we come in.
Every utterance of a purported fact, or an accusation, by a candidate can be proven false or true. And we intend to keep the candidates, who are also facing challenges from Libertarian Jeff Scott and the Green Party’s Allen Smith, honest by fact-checking these claims through social media, attending events, sourcing ourselves well on the candidates and the issues dear to them, as well as scouring voting, financial and other data.
We will write up straight stories for each to give the issues and claims context. We will not grade the comments or allegations, but let the readers know, through annotation and our reporting, the facts that support or knock down claims.
Coming tomorrow: A press release from the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee makes several claims about N.C. Sen. Dan Bishop, the Republican candidate for the 9th Congressional District race.
Who we are:
Eric Ferkenhoff, the editor or the project, has 27 years of reporting and teaching experience, including investigative work and covering issues ranging from business to religion, sports, criminal justice, politics and education. Originally from Kansas City, he has lived and worked in Illinois and North Carolina, writing for the Chicago Tribune, The Boston Globe, Time and The New York Times. He also has broadcast experience. Ferkenhoff began his teaching at Northwestern University, where he left as an assistant professor of journalism to move to North Carolina. He now works at UNC-Chapel Hill, where he has taught intro and advanced reporting, as well as community journalism. He also runs Our Chatham’s online effort to fill in-depth reporting holes in the county.
Elizabeth Chen is a writer, editor and UNC School of Media and Journalism alumna. Her work has appeared in INDY Week, Choose Energy, The Durham VOICE and The Tab UNC. She served as the Director of Copy Editing at Coulture Magazine during her senior year at UNC, and previously worked as an associate copy editor at The Daily Tar Heel. Connect with her on Twitter or LinkedIn.
Matthew Langston is a junior at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill majoring in Political Science with a minor in History. Originally from Wilson, North Carolina, he has been interested in politics and journalism since high school. He has previously written about youth involvement in politics and other issues. In addition to working for UNC FactCheck, Matthew is a member of the UNC Institute of Politics and the UNC chapter of Phi Alpha Delta, a pre-law fraternity.
Molly Weisner is a junior studying media and journalism and French at UNC-Chapel Hill. She currently works as the online managing editor for The Daily Tar Heel’s summer newsroom and will also be the online/copy editor for the paper during the school year after having worked on copy for two years. She also works as the digital content manager for Wine & Design Charlotte as she manages the business’s social media pages and online marketing. Molly has previously worked on a yearlong reporting beat in the School of Media and Journalism on public libraries in Durham, Orange and Wake counties before transitioning to investigative coverage of juvenile justice and the school-to-prison pipeline in North Carolina. In the future, Molly hopes to continue working in editorial positions while continuing her pursuit of changes to juvenile crime law in North Carolina and across the country.
Arijit Douglas Sen is an investigative reporter, photojournalist and documentary filmmaker and rising senior at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s School of Media and Journalism. He reports on local government and other issues for Our Chatham and on the North Carolina 9th District Special Election. This summer, he is developing a potential plan for an investigative journalism program for the School of Media and Journalism.
Tyler Musialowski is a rising third-year student from Concord, N.C., in the School of Media and Journalism on the Advertising and Public Relations track with a second major in Political Science. Tyler works in technological support for the school’s athletics department, where he provides assistance to various staff on game days. He also serves as the vice president of public relations for the on-campus organization, Student Friends of the Ackland Art Museum. He would one day like to work for a sports agency or in the front office of a professional sports franchise.
