Fact Check

To help you find the truth in West Virginia politics, reporters and researchers from PolitiFact West Virginia examine statements by elected officials and candidates  – and anyone else who speaks up on matters of public importance – provides context for those statements and then rates their accuracy according to PolitiFact’s Truth-O-Meter. PolitiFact West Virginia is a partnership of 100 Days in Appalachia, Pulitzer Prize winning PolitiFact and the Reed College of Media at West Virginia University.

U.S. Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., speaks at a commencement ceremony for nursing students from West Virginia Junior College on April 20, 2018, at Chestnut Ridge Church, in Morgantown. Photo: Jesse Wright/100 Days in Appalachia
U.S. Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., speaks at a commencement ceremony for nursing students from West Virginia Junior College on April 20, 2018, at Chestnut Ridge Church, in Morgantown. Photo: Jesse Wright/100 Days in Appalachia

Fact-check: W.Va. Home to Zero Billionaire’s Despite Joe Manchin’s ‘Concerns’ about Billionaire Tax Proposal

In a recent tweet, David Gura, a broadcast journalist currently with NPR, tweeted Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., about a seeming irony of one his stances in the hard-fought battle over a key element of President Joe Biden’s agenda. After word emerged that Manchin had thrown cold water on a “billionaire’s tax” proposal by […]

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A truck carrying Moderna vaccines crashed near Morgantown, W.Va., on Aug. 27. Photo: West Virginia 511

Did a Truck Carrying Moderna Vaccine Crash? And Did the Pentagon Handle the Recovery?

Did the U.S. military take over the site where a truck carrying coronavirus vaccines crashed in Morgantown, West Virginia? That’s what a recent viral social media post said. The viral tweet, also shared across other social media platforms, said that “near Morgantown, WV, a Moderna shipment truck crashed, hazmat dispatched, airspace […]

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Fact-Checking Trump’s Claim In Pa. That He’s ‘Putting Our Great Coal Miners Back To Work’

President Donald Trump returned to Pennsylvania on Tuesday for the first time since his COVID-19 hospitalization and told supporters at a rally in Johnstown that he’d revived the nation’s struggling coal mining industry.  “We’re putting our great coal miners back to work,” Trump said.  We wondered whether the president fulfilled a campaign promise he […]

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Did 780 Million Opioid Pills, Or 421 Pills For Every Resident, Flow Into West Virginia? Basically, Yes.

The opioid epidemic has raged across the United States in recent years, but it has affected West Virginia more severely than most states. In 2018, the most recent year for which data is available, West Virginia ranked second only to Vermont in per capita overdose deaths from heroin and first in deaths from synthetic opioids. […]

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