Grading PolitiFact: Sarah Palin and snack inflation

Context matters -- We examine the claim in the full context, the comments made before and after it, the question that prompted it, and the point the person was trying to make.
--Principles of PolitiFact and the Truth-O-Meter

The issue:

(clipped from PolitiFact.com)

The fact checkers:

Louis Jacobson:  writer, researcher
Martha Hamilton:  editor

Analysis:

During her recent interview with Newsweek, definite maybe Republican presidential candidate Sarah Palin talked inflation.  And PolitiFact was there:

The article explained that Palin has "become conversant on the subject of quantitative easing" -- a Federal Reserve bond-buying plan. The effort was designed to bolster a weak economy, but critics say it risks encouraging inflation. (We rated her on a related statement last November.)

In the July 10, 2011 Newsweek interview, Palin illustrated the issue with an anecdote about her husband: "I was ticked off at Todd yesterday," she said. "He walks into a gas station as we’re driving over from Minnesota. He buys a Slim Jim—we’re always eating that jerky stuff—for $2.69. I said, 'Todd, those used to be 99 cents, just recently!' And he says, 'Man, the dollar’s worth nothing anymore.' A jug of milk and a loaf of bread and a dozen eggs—every time I walk into that grocery store, a couple of pennies more."

Indeed, it's about inflation.  What fact are we checking, PolitiFact?

A reader asked us to look into whether Slim Jims have, in fact, been swept up in a huge inflationary spiral recently.

Uh, what?  A reader decided which fact to check?

We’ll start by noting that Palin used an anecdote to draw broader conclusions. That’s not necessarily a no-no, but it should be taken with a grain of salt. (Or, perhaps, 430 mg of salt, the amount of sodium in a 0.97-ounce original Slim Jim.) Even if Palin’s anecdote is true, it may not support her larger points about food inflation and the dangers thereof.

I encourage the reader to go back and review Palin's statement.  Do it.  I'll wait.

Done?  Good.  It isn't at all necessary to take Palin's Slim Jim story as an illustration of inflation.  The main reason for doing that, in fact, comes from context provided by the Newsweek reporter.  The reporter appears to have provided a skewed take on Palin's words.

Think about the story seriously for a moment.  She's mad at her husband.  That has a great deal to do with inflation, right?  Even though the pair eats "that jerky stuff" fairly routinely, Palin doesn't realize that prices vary depending on where the purchase is made?  Seriously?  I suppose that could fit with a preconceived narrative that Palin is a dunce, but bear with me.  The key, I think, is the punch line the story, provided by Todd Palin.

That's right.  I said punch line.

I think the story is pretty obviously humorous.  Sarah's mad at Todd and gets on him for spending over two dollars for a Slim Jim.  The high price is plausible, as the PolitiFact story appears to allow.  Todd's excuse?  The shrinking dollar.  The story was probably intended as a humorous and personal way to get to Palin's observations about inflation.  Not Slim Jim prices, but the upward creep for basics like milk, bread and eggs.  I count it as a misinterpretation to think Palin was suggesting the high price Mr. Palin paid for his Slim Jim snack was representative of food inflation.

But let's look at Slim Jim prices anyway:

"Our iconic Slim Jim Giant Sticks are priced around $1.30," Paulsen said.

That seems up a bit from the traditional $0.99 price.

Why would that be?

ConAgra and other food producers have had to raise prices as higher costs for ingredients and other raw materials cut into profits. This quarter, the company's consumer foods segment saw costs rise 9 percent.

ConAgra said it expects higher costs to remain a challenge and will raise prices further. The company said those moves will begin to pay off in the second half of the year.

"We have made it crystal-clear that we are serious about increasing our net pricing to help mitigate this much higher input cost inflation," ConAgra CEO Gary Rodkin told investors Thursday. "We have made it very clear that we are not going to go backwards on pricing and if that means that we need to make some modest tradeoff on the volume in the near term, we are willing to do that."

That item was dated toward the middle of last month.  ConAgra makes the Slim Jim product line.

Rewind:

Teresa Paulsen, a ConAgra spokeswoman, said that "we admire Mr. Palin’s taste and appreciate his support," but added that "we haven’t raised the price significantly on any Slim Jim products."

Huh.  Do you think we're getting the whole story from Paulsen?

ConAgra, General Mills, Kellogg’s and Kraft recently raised prices for many of their wares. In December ConAgra, which makes Slim Jim meat snacks, among other delicacies, reported a 16% decline in second-quarter profits. Like other food makers, ConAgra is experimenting with smaller packages sold at the same price.

Jan 20, 2011

It's surprisingly hard to pin down the suggested retail price history for Slim Jim snacks.  But it does appear that Slim Jim has adjusted prices upward and that Paulsen weasels a bit on the term "significantly"--perhaps using it relative to the price increase implied by an uncharitable interpretation of Palin's story.

Cut to the bottom line:  The difference between 99 cents and $2.69 need not represent an inflationary difference for Palin's husband's comment about the weak dollar.  From there the story segues to serious talk of inflation on everyday items.  The evidence suggests that inflation has affected the prices of Slim Jim products, the comments of its spokesperson notwithstanding.

Not too surprisingly, PolitiFact fails to see i that way:

So where does this leave us? Let’s assume, for the sake of argument, that the Palins are correct and they recently paid two and a half times more for a Slim Jim than they used to. If that’s the case, it wasn’t because ConAgra raised the suggested price. It could have been because they bought from a particularly expensive retailer, or they could have been choosing a different and more expensive flavor of Slim Jim without realizing it.

Rather, if the Palins paid what they claimed for a Slim Jim it wasn't entirely because of a rise in the suggested retail price.  It is likely that ConAgra has increased the price during the past year.  Thus, Palin's statement would be partly true and in line with PolitiFact's description of its "Barely True" rating or the more recent flavor of its "Half True" rating--especially since the underlying point about rising food costs is accurate.

Again, PolitiFact doesn't see it that way:

Still, even if Todd Palin paid more for his snack food fix, it doesn’t support Sarah Palin’s argument that food prices are skyrocketing. Food prices -- an always-volatile sector -- are indeed going up, and that may or may not be a worry for the longer term. However, food prices are not rising by anything approaching 169 percent. Her anecdote offers spice, but not a lot of meat. We rate it False.

PolitiFact sees an argument implied in Palin's anecdote.  PolitiFact ignores alternate interpretations such as the one I've suggested that make the implied argument irrelevant to Palin's point.

PolitiFact's approach is hardly objective.  Rather, it fits the pattern often seen in skeptical arguments where a statement is attacked according to its weakest interpretation--a form of the straw man fallacy.

In this case I cheerfully admit that I do not know for sure what Palin intended to say.  The evidence, in conjunction with the principle of charitable interpretation, suggests the explanation I put forward.  The best practice for fact checking, I believe, will always involve consideration of a plausible charitable interpretation along with offering the benefit of the doubt.  It would be just as consistent, admittedly, to always opt for the uncharitable interpretation.  PolitiFact chooses the mushy middle ground, setting itself up again to having its ratings swayed by the subjectivity of its team members.  Bottom line, the "False" rating can only stand by unfairly ignoring Palin's underlying point.  Food prices are going up because of inflation.

The grades:

Louis Jacobson:  F
Martha Hamilton:  F

The failing grades follow from the failure to employ the principle of charitable interpretation along with an apparent failure to research product pricing by ConAgra (other than perhaps accepting a spokesperson's ambiguous statement as an assurance that Slim Jim prices did not change).  Slim Jim prices probably went up during the past year, and that information should have appeared in the story.

In this case, PolitiFact appeared to go along with the agenda of the reader who asked for the fact check.  The person requesting the fact check shalt not narrow the focus to the point of excluding the point the person was trying to make, or else PolitiFact is compromising its standards (see epigraph above).

Afters:

The price of milk, graphically presented.