Columbia Journalism Review botches critique of PolitiFact

Though PolitiFact is increasingly regarded as dependably left-leaning by conservatives, it also receives abundant criticism from the left.  PolitiFact often uses the criticism from both sides as an evidence of its neutrality.  But it doesn't quite work that way.  It's possible to flub up stories unfavorably for both Democrats and Republicans while still giving one of the parties the predominantly short end of the stick.

In addition, the criticisms from the right tend to better strike the mark.  As an example, let's examine a recent pan of PolitiFact from the respected Columbia Journalism Review dealing with a Fox News claim about teacher pay in Wisconsin relative to the national average for private sector pay.

CJR's Ryan Chittum scolded PolitiFact for grading a false statement "Barely True."  But Chittum's critique overlooked both the nature of the facts and PolitiFact's description of its "Truth-O-Meter" ratings.

But it's worth starting out with Chittum's immediate digression in treating the claim by Fox News' Eric Bolling:

Here’s what Bolling said:

“We got blackboard, here it is, Wisconsin teachers make a salary of $51,000…Benefits $38,000 per year, that comes to a whopping 89,000 bucks, while the rest of us, all workers in the United States, union, non-union, etc., $38,000 is your average salary…there, $10,000 in benefits, a quarter of what you make, that you would make if you were a Wisconsin teacher, to 48 grand, almost half the amount. Yet collective bargaining says that is OK. That’s not anti-free market?”

The whole thing is flat false, but first, I can’t let this pass uncommented, because it’s pure Murdoch/Fox: Here we have a guy who’s a rich TV anchor/commodities trader including himself with “the rest of us, all workers in the United States” to carp about teachers bringing home 700 bucks a week. Dude’s a real man of the people.

Chittum could hardly have chosen a more direct way undermine his credibility.  Bolling wasn't presenting himself as a man of the people, he was accurately counting himself as a private sector employee whose salary figures into a national average for private sector employees.  Does Chittum hate Fox News?  Judging form this out-of-place swipe at Bolling we have reason to think so.  His opinion of Fox apparently clouds his judgment.

Chittum goes on to unpack a set of figures that contrasts with those Bolling used on his Fox News segment, concluding that Bolling was so far off that PolitiFact was obligated to affix a rating of "False" to his statement.

Chittum's argument doesn't stack up as to the facts.  As one commenter on Chittum's post ("padikiller") pointed out, PolitiFact's numbers were not definitive.  Rather, they were estimates.  Estimates provide a poor grounding for a definitive finding of "False."

In addition, Chittum appears to misunderstand PolitiFact's grading criteria.  PolitiFact editor Bill Adair has written that the most important aspect of a "numbers claim" is the underlying point.  The wrong figure, if not too far out bounds--and granted PolitiFact does little to pin down the boundaries--can support the underlying point and result in ratings well above "False."

Unfortunately, the PolitiFact writer in question, Robert Farley, apparently didn't know about his own grading system enough to use it to defend the rating:

UPDATE: Rob Farley of PolitiFact and the St. Pete Times says on Twitter that Politifact’s judgment “takes into account that Bolling gave corrected numbers the next night.”

And so it does, saying in the kicker that “We don’t take too much issue with the raw numbers provided by Bolling (the clarified ones).” Bolling, to his credit, had corrected his original numbers with ones closer to reality a day after his report ran.

But I’m not sure that parenthetical in the last paragraph was good enough. I’m sure I’m not the only one who read the piece as PolitiFact taking on the original statement. That’s what the headline says:

In Wisconsin, teachers make $89,000 in salary and benefits, compared to $48,000 for all other workers in the United States.

As well as the subhed:

Fox Business News’ Eric Bolling says Wisconsin teachers get compensated nearly double those in private sector

I agree that Farley's excuse seems thin.  On the other hand, didn't media critic Chittum notice any problem at all with PolitiFact's blurbs other than the one he mentions?  Look at the second one he quotes.  The blurb suggests Bolling set up a comparison between  "Wisconsin teachers" and "those in the private sector," where the latter are also teachers.  While that would have represented an apples-to-apples comparison, it isn't what Bolling said.

And another thing.  Both Chittum and PolitiFact pay particular attention to Bolling's claim that Wisconsin teachers make nearly double what private sector employees make nationally.  But though Bolling does make that claim implicitly, he does it in the context of comparing $48,000 to $89,000.  Bolling did not use the figures to support the argument that Wisconsin teachers make double the compensation of the private sector nationally.  Rather, he was making an observation about the numbers.  In that context his claim was an accurate approximation.

So Chittum's critique is off the mark and PolitiFact's Farley doesn't know how to defend his organization by its own standards.


Afters:

Ironically, while taking Bolling to task for an apples-to-oranges comparison, PolitiFact did the same thing.  It used a study comparing comparing government employees (union and otherwise) to private sector employees to undercut Bolling's argument.  But Bolling's point concerned the pay of government employees as influenced by union representation.

Chittum didn't notice?