Sink concedes, offers advice

I don't think I'd call the speech or her subsequent interaction with the press gracious:



Sink's advice to Scott, to focus on achieving unity with those who did not support him, provides a bit of a contrast with President Obama's philosophy of rule expressed not long after he took office:

"I won."


Aside from the video, the St. Petersburg Times published a story about Scott's victory speech and Sink's concession.  The Times' story included one of those bits I love--a bit of liberal opinion presented as factual common knowledge:

Scott, spending $73 million on his campaign and promising to bring new jobs to the state, capitalized on the economic anxiety and anti-incumbent sentiment embodied by the tea party, a movement he once helped finance with a campaign-style group that fought President Barack Obama's health care changes.

The tea party embodies the sentiments of economic anxiety (fear) and anti-incumbent sentiment (anger).  Objective fact!  The tea party folks are angry and scared.  The Times has measured it and dutifully reported its objective findings to its "in the know" readers, who can add it to their store of knowledge if they didn't get the message already.

Maybe the tea party just doesn't agree with using government (deficit) spending and government employment to address economic woes?

Nah, that couldn't be it.  They're just skeered and angry.  We see that all the time with uneducated yokels.  Or something.

John Bartosek responds

Yesterday I sent an e-mail query to PolitiFact, intended for the e-mail boxes of editor John Bartosek and writer-researcher Lukas Pleva.

I asked for the reason why PolitiFact, given its non-partisan nature, would focus on Rep. Alan Grayson's claim that the U.S. ranks No. 50 in life expectancy worldwide rather than the adjacent claims that the U.S. ranks "just below" Albania and ranks "dead last" in math test scores (background and text of my message).

Bartosek's prompt reply arrived in my e-mail box at 9:39 a.m. EDT.

Fascinating, to borrow a line from Mr. Spock:

Thank you for your recent note about PolitiFact. I'm happy to give you some background on how we work. We focus on a single statement, as often as we can, so that we're making a ruling on only one comment at a time. We think that helps keep us focused and makes things clear. We have, in the past, tackled various education issues, including the state's high school graduation rate being below the national average (True), the state being 50th in education spending (Half True), and Florida teachers being paid $5,000 below national average (Mostly True). It wasn't bias in not picking the comment about math ranking, it was simply the chance to look at another topic (health care) that we hadn't touched on lately.

Bartosek wasn't done, but I need to cut in.  Deciding to make the story about one part of Grayson's comment instead of about another part of the same comment is selection bias by definition.  Whether or not it represents a political bias in addition remains an open question, though we now have Bartosek on record denying the latter type of bias occurred.

Bartosek's assertion that PolitiFact deals with one claim at a time was ridiculous on its face.  I've run across numerous counterexamples, and I sent a couple of them to him in my e-mail reply.

Note that through this point Bartosek has sought to excuse ignoring Grayson's comment about that math ranking.  What about "just below Albania"?  That claim is part of Grayson's statement about U.S. life expectancy and thus, according to Bartosek, on the subject of "health care."  Bartosek tackles that next:

I think Rep. Grayson's comment about Albania was an example of his bigger point about the U.S. ranking worldwide, and we chose to focus on that broader point, rather than writing just about Albania. (Just FYI, the U.S. came in just above Albania in both the 2009 and 2010 CIA Factbook rankings, meaning our life expectancy is slightly higher than that country. The difference is very small.)

This paragraph from Bartosek is funnier every time I read it.

Undoubtedly, Grayson's comment about Albania was an example of his bigger point about the U.S. ranking worldwide.  But it was wrong!  And that fact got swept under the rug!  Bartosek then says that the decision was made to focus on the broader point rather than write "just about Albania."  But what prevents focusing on the broader point while also setting the record straight about Albania falling consistently below the United States in the rankings? 

As for Bartosek's "FYI," the CIA Factbook provides the best case for Albania ranking close to the U.S. in life expectancy.  The other two sources cited in the story told a different story, and Bartosek's claim about the 2009 CIA Factbook remains open to question.  The writer, Lukas Pleva used Wikipedia as a secondary source rather than going to the CIA Factbook itself.  This alternative source tells a different story and which is supported by the published version of the CIA Factbook remains an open question.

"The difference is very small."  Right, but the difference is very small in both directions.  Take the difference in the rankings published by the Population Reference Bureau (a source cited in the PolitiFact story) between Albania (No. 59, avg. 75 yrs) and the U.S. (No. 45, avg. 78 years) and add it to the U.S. total.  Average life expectancy of 81 years would put the U.S. up in the neighborhood of Canada (No. 15, avg. 81 years).

Even for the Wikipedia version of the 2009 CIA Factbook figures most favorable to Grayson, the U.S. could hop from No. 50 to No. 47 based merely on the difference (.15 years) with Albania:

Though it appears possible on its face that the United States could make up the difference with No. 1 simply by a change in the national diet, PolitiFact justifies the focus of the story because it supposedly concerns health care.

Sure, not much separates the U.S. from Albania in years of life expectancy.  But not much more than what separates the U.S. from Albania separates the U.S. from a top 10 ranking, all the cited sources considered.

Bartosek's response does little to dispel the appearance of political bias.  On the contrary, it offers evidence of a considered selection bias with possible roots in political bias.  In addition, the claim that PolitiFact sticks with one subject "as often as we can" is hard to swallow given the contradictory evidence.  "(A)s often as we can" apparently boils down to subjective news judgment and provides an avenue for the influence of political bias.

As I've said often in the past, I do not believe that PolitiFact staffers intentionally inject their political bias into their work.  They simply take inadequate precautions against that occurrence.


Afters

I decided early not to use the full text of my e-mail reply to Bartosek in this post.  That decision had nothing to do with my leaving out a "the" near the end of my message:

The average reader has no conception that a fact checking outfit will ignore the truth values for dubious adjacent claims merely to help ensure that [the] topic of health care (?) gets its due.

That's not to rule out the existence of other typos I may have missed on review.

Mainstream media smuggling

One of the more insidious forms of media bias comes from the insertion of dubious material in "news" stories as accepted fact.  PolitiFact offered up a nice example of that recently.

What's wrong?

I'll tell you what's wrong.  Look at the deck statement:  "Emanuel says BP apologist Rep. Baron would be chair of (the) Energy and Commerce Committee if GOP regains House."  PolitiFact focused on Emanuel's fortune-telling and found it half-true--quite a feat in itself that PolitiFact was able to make a ruling on a future event months in advance, though I'd have cut Emanuel some slack (charitable interpretation) and take him to mean that Barton would the chair if Republicans were in power in the here and now.

But I digress.

Emanuel, in the immediate context, did not call Barton a "BP apologist":

Rahm Emanuel:
"That's for the Republicans to decide. What I think is more important, you can say it's a political gift for us, and it is. But it's dangerous for the American people, because while the ranking Republican would have oversight into the energy industry, and if the Republicans were the majority, would have actually the gavel and the chairmanship."

In his subsequent remarks, however, Emanuel charged that Barton was making BP the victim rather than the gulf fishermen:

"That's not a political gaffe, those were prepared remarks. That is a philosophy. That is an approach to what they see. They see the aggrieved party here is BP, not the fishermen. And remember, this is not just one person. Rand Paul, running for Senate in Kentucky, what did he say? He said the way BP was being treated was un-American."

There's a fine statement to fact-check:  "They see the aggrieved party here is BP, not the fishermen."

The Republicans (some, not all) see both the fishermen and BP as aggrieved in light of the Obama administration's pressure on BP to set up a $2 billion fund entirely separate from its legal liabilities.

The PolitiFact deck feeds into the meme the Democrats will probably want to push during the coming election season.  There was no need to refer to Barton as a "BP apologist," and that term may even reflect a failure of the author to understand the term "apologist."  It may be that the intent was to say that Barton had offered an apology to BP.  That's not what "apologist" means.

If it was an attempt at a clever pun then it failed the test of journalistic fairness.  It is irresponsible to call Barton a "BP apologist" without explaining in what respect he defended BP.  Certainly Barton was not in the position of saying that BP carried no blame for the gulf oil spew.


July 31, 2010:  Removed an extra "to refer" to avoid redundancy.

Media bias or simply cluelessness?

The answer is probably both. But I'll report and you decide.

The subject is an Associated Press story on Obama administration pushback on Republican claims that the Democratic health care reform bills do not slow the growth of health care costs.

The headline:

White House defends costs, cuts in health bill

The Associated Press, however is not the subject of my title. My subject is the St. Petersburg Times. The Times exercised its option to use the AP story. And it exercised its option to provide a different headline:

Obama administrations refutes Republican claims that it's not doing enough to fight rising health care costs

Leaving aside the extra "s" at the end of "administration," does the editor not know that "refutes" means something different from "rebuts"? It would be rare indeed for an "objective" news source to have warrant to use "refutes" in a story in this manner. It constitutes an editorial judgment, for the word indicates that the other claim has been effectively undermined. "Rebuts," in contrast, communicates the idea that the administration contested the Republican claim, but without taking a position as to whether the attempt succeeded.

The Times seems to have used the term judiciously in a headline concerning local politician Brian Blair. Blair is a Republican, for what it's worth.

On the other hand, the Times appeared to use the wrong word for a story about Dr. Alfred Bonati.

A pretty good sign of media bias

Granted it involves a mere two major newspapers and editorial positions, but Power Line provides the details that end up with this capper:

So the (New York) Times, like the Star Tribune, is in favor of the filibuster when the Democrats are in the minority in the Senate, but opposed to it when the Republicans are in the minority. That's an easily understandable position. It would be nice if these papers, and hundreds of others like them, would come out and say--just one time before they sink beneath the waters of Chapter 11--that they are shills for the Democratic Party, and their editorials are paraphrases of faxes they get from the Democratic National Committee. Would that really be so painful? After all, it's not as though they're fooling anyone.

Indeed, the drift in principle is rather difficult to understand minus a significant ideological bias.

Politico on bias in the press

John F. Harris and Jim Vandehei of Politico wrote a take on the bias in the press against John McCain, titled "Why McCain is getting hosed in the press."

The writing team makes partial use of a traditional defense, stating that ideological bias counts for little because reporters set their own opinions aside so easily. I would say that may be true for the best journalists. But to a large extent one can tell the best ones from the pack by the way they report. I'm talking about the use of non-essential descriptive adverbs in news stories. If reporters allow things like that to creep into their writing, then the chances are good that political opinions can also find their way past the objective filter.

Harris and Vandehei check their own bias on that point.

If that causes skeptics to scoff, perhaps they would find it more satisfying to hear that the reason ideological bias matters so little is that other biases matter so much more.

They seem to be saying it isn't that reporters lean to the left in this case, but something else.

This is true in any election year. But the 2008 election has had some unique — and personal — phenomena.

One is McCain backlash. The Republican once was the best evidence of how little ideology matters. Even during his “maverick” days, McCain was a consistent social conservative, with views on abortion and other cultural issues that would have been odds with those of most reporters we know. Yet he won swooning coverage for a decade from reporters who liked his accessibility and iconoclasm and supposed commitment to clean politics.

This explanation is plausible on its face, but it is just as easily regarded as reporters classifying McCain as an unusually "good" Republican, and then getting nasty when their past apparent errors come to light. In other words, the non-ideological explanation in turn may have its roots in ideology.

On a shallower level, I tend to agree with Harris and Vandehei that most reporters try to report fairly. What I read in the press (not via scientific sampling, unfortunately) leads me to believe that many reporters and editors simply aren't very good at objective reporting in the first place. And it's enough to make a pretty noticeable difference even if we were to allow that "most" reporters actually succeed at reporting with their bias minimized.

Harris and Vandehei make a few other points as well. Readers interested in the issue of journalistic bias may want to read the whole story.

AP selective with story details regarding "Troopergate"

Those who are following the twists and turns in an investigation of Governor Sarah Palin's dismissal of Alaska's public safety commissioner, Walt Monegan know that the Democrat Hollis French denied at least one key subpoena request made by the independent counsel.

The AP reporter following the case apparently remains totally unaware, judging by an AP story today that reports on the politization of the legislative investigation. All the details concerning politization point toward Republicans in the story, apart from the help Republicans are getting from the chairman of the Legislative Council:

The chairman of the council, Democratic state Sen. Kim Elton, said he would poll other council members on whether to meet.

Elton had previously refused to call such a meeting before panel investigator Steven Branchflower issued his report. In a letter Wednesday to House Speaker John Harris, Elton said circumstances had changed.

He said the situation had become so politicized it was difficult to imagine it could get any worse. Elton said he used to fear that any debate without a report would be "run through the prism of presidential politics and focus on motives." But now, he added, the debate is "taking place through press conferences and lawsuits."

If the mainstream media forgets a detail or two you can sometimes get it from the Blogosphere:

As the investigation known as Troopergate gets into full swing with 13 subpoenas being issued by the Alaska State Legislature on September 12, questions are being raised as to who is actually in charge. On Friday, Alaska lawmakers held a hearing concerning the subpoenas and asked independent investigator, Steve Branchflower, why Governor Palin’s former chief of staff, Mike Tibbles was not on the list to receive a subpoena. This was in spite of the fact that Tibbles had called a meeting of Palin aides to discuss the firing of Mike Wooten, the Alaska State Trooper in question. In the ensuing conversation, Branchflower admitted it was his list but was under the control and direction of Senator Hollis French, a Democrat who has strong ties to the campaign of Barack Obama. You can click here to listen to the audio of the conversation.
(by "Larry" at My Take)

The news coverage this election cycle is so biased that "corrupt" might be the proper adjective to apply.