PolitiFlub: Who gambles the most?

Argh.  Perhaps Media Matters is better than PolitiFact after all.

The latest improbable flub from PolitiFact involves the question of gambling demographics.

PolitiFact examines a statement supposedly from John Stemberger.  Here's the headline blurb:

The largest number of gamblers are "from the poorest segments of the population."  

John Stemberger on Thursday, October 20th, 2011 in a website

However, it turns out that the portion in quotes was in turn quoted by Stemberger from another source (bold emphasis added):

The blog post from Oct. 20, 2011, uses partial quotes from Wayne Grudem, a theology professor at Phoenix Seminary in Arizona and author of the book Politics According to the Bible:

"My own judgment is that large commercial gambling outlets such as casinos and state-sponsored lotteries bring much more harm to a society than the benefits they generate (such as tax revenue)… First, it is socially harmful (and fiscally regressive) because the largest numbers of gamblers comes from the poorest segments of the population. Second, (it) leads to an addiction to gambling … and this addiction destroys marriages, families … and increases societal breakdown. Third, studies have shown that where gambling businesses are established, crime rates increase."

Every bit of the information PolitiFact is checking, as a matter of fact, comes from quotations of Grudem.

But there's more.

PolitiFact is good enough to link to the page in Grudem's book from which the material ultimately came.  But PolitiFact does not provide what may be a key part of the context of Grudem's claim, and ignores that potential key element in its reasoning.

Grudem:

(S)erious objections can be brought against gambling, or at least commercial gambling as a business.  A number of studies have shown that gambling brings negative effects in a society, and these must be seriously considered.  First, it is socially harmful because the largest number of gamblers comes from the poorest segments of the population, who make unwise decisions and trap themselves deeper and deeper in debt. Second, the existence of gambling businesses leads to an addiction to gambling on the part of a certain percentage of the population, and this addiction destroys marriages, families, and any hope for career advancement ...

Note that Grudem is sourcing his objections to an unnamed "number of studies."  So, if we keep each of the successive statements in context, the fact check ought to be about whether those studies say what Grudem claims they say (compare Jon Stewart).

Yet the fallout lands on John Stemberger without even apparently considering the studies to which Grudem alludes.  Though it's worth noting that Grudem apparently does not cite the studies specifically, fact checkers thereby obtain no excuse for ignoring the original context of the claim.

As bad as the failing makes PolitiFact appear, it gets even worse.

Note the wording of the claim from Grudem:  "the largest number of gamblers comes from the poorest segments of the population."  Though Grudem refers to segments plural, PolitiFact proceeds to interpret it in the singular.  That interpretation leads to what may represent a straw man version of Grudem's argument.

Note the response elicited from one of PolitiFact's expert sources:

"In my opinion this is a poorly worded and misleading statement," said David Just, an economics professor at Cornell, who has studied poverty and lotteries. "By no means does this group constitute the majority of those playing the lottery. Those in poverty are just 16 percent of the U.S. population."

It's possible that Grudem had a poverty-level demographic in mind.  But is an assumption warranted?

PolitiFact simply fails to handle the material objectively.  Stemberger did not make the statement attributed to him other than by quoting his source.  Grudem deserves the fact check if anyone, and PolitiFact takes his statement out of context and applies to it something less than the charitable interpretation.


Afters:

I'm still shaking my head over the opening paragraph:

In the ongoing war about gambling in Florida, some critics have turned to the Bible to state their case.

Some critics may have turned to the Bible to make their case, but it doesn't have much to do with this fact check, which concerns a criticism of the lottery based on economics and harm to society.

The paragraph doesn't belong in this story.  Good grief.