Gimme the Truth (The PolitiFact Song)

When we considered the different ways we could promote our new fact-checking site, PolitiFact.com, it seemed most appropriate that we would add our take to the ever-expanding collection of music videos that – no doubt – will be a recalled fixture of the 2008 Election. (If you look closely, you can see several references to Obama Girl, Guiliani Girl and the YouTube debate snowman, Billiam.)

The song was penned by St. Petersburg Times Deputy Metro Editor Chris Ave, who cameos in the video on guitar. The song was produced by Ryan Shields, a local musician who was recently tapped by a major chain restaurant to write and perform its first ever jingle. In the band, he’s playing bass in the gray T-shirt.

For the lead vocal, a.k.a. PolitiFact Girl, we chose to use another local talent, Teresa Shields, Ryan’s sister, to deliver the right blend of youth empowerment and pop appeal. Rounding out the band was a tattooed friend of Ryan’s on back-up guitar and Times media critic Eric Deggans on drums.

For the lead voter, we cast Justin Cabarga from a local theater community. He was a great sport and delivered take after take flawlessly. The rest of the cast, numbering about 50 in all, was made up of about 70 percent Times staff. We rented out a local historic venue, the Mirror Lake Lyceum, for the production. The shoot occurred on Saturday, Sept. 15, and encompassed 10 hours in all.

The video was shot and edited by a producer in the Times Web department, and a large majority of the props were created in-house by Web staffers. Even the building department got involved by constructing the six-monitor video wall and the voting booths. Fun fact: The voting machine used in the video came from Palm Beach, Florida, and has hundreds of genuine chads still hanging in the bottom (and was purchased on eBay for $5).