Yesterday PolitiFact published a piece by editor Bill Adair apparently intended to reassure readers that PolitiFact is, well, politifair in the way it does business.
Given Adair's recent past of expressing indifference to the public's perception of bias at PolitiFact this is a significant development. Eric Ostermeier probably deserves a great deal of the credit for putting PolitiFact on the defensive. Ostermeier published a study of PolitiFact's results suggesting the strong possibility of selection bias and called for PolitiFact to make its selection process transparent.
Though Ostermeier's name might as well have been "Voldemort" for purposes of Adair's article, the latter probably serves as Adair's response to Ostermeier's call.
How does the answer measure up?
Editor's Note: We've had some inquiries lately about how we select claims to check and make our rulings. So here's an overview of our procedures and the principles for Truth-O-Meter rulings.
The editor's note is about half true. PolitiFact didn't just have inquiries. It found itself criticized by a serious researcher who made a good case that PolitiFact ought to be viewed as having a selection bias problem unless PolitiFact could allay the concern by making its methods transparent. The editor's note isn't exactly transparent.
When PolitiFact Bias started out about a year ago, the clear majority of criticism PolitiFact received over its first three-plus years came from the right.
Thanks largely to its 2011 "Lie of the Year" selection--the claim Republicans voted to end Medicare--and some energetic pushback from Jon Stewart and Rachel Maddow when PolitiFact dinged them with poor ratings, PolitiFact has started to enjoy criticism from the left in earnest.
Economist and partisan hack Paul Krugman has taken it on himself to torment PolitiFact with his scolding, the latest with his New York Times blog item "Finding the Truth."
Krugman knows what a fact checker should do, and he's not afraid to tell PolitiFact:
(T)he point of Politifact and other news-org fact-check things is supposed to be to do this work for readers, so that you don’t have to learn your way around labor-force or trade or crime or whatever statistics every time you have doubts about a political claim.
Happily, there's an element of truth in there amidst Krugman's hacktastic folderol.
If PolitiFact presents itself as objective news (it does), Krugman is essentially correct that PolitiFact should simply check what facts it can check and leave the semantic analysis alone. Semantic analysis, after all, is analysis, and news analysis is a slightly different animal than news reporting.
On the other hand, if PolitiFact views itself as a news analysis operation and simply fails to apply to its work the label "news analysis" or the like, then Krugman has no business telling PolitiFact what it is "supposed to" do. That's kind of like me telling Krugman to stick to economics instead of political hackery. It might be fun for me to write, but Krugman's free to do as he pleases. I don't have the moral authority to tell him otherwise any more than he has it to wield on PolitiFact.
Krugman:
Unfortunately, Politifact has lost sight of what it was supposed to be doing. Instead of simply saying whether a claim is true, it’s trying to act as some kind of referee of what it imagines to be fair play: even if a politician says something completely true, it gets ruled only partly true if Politifact feels that the fact is being used to gain an unfair political advantage.
When did PolitiFact lose sight of what it was supposed to be doing?
Pretty much right out of the gate.
PolitiFact has always used one of six grades on its "Truth-O-Meter" scale, explicitly taking things like context and misleading presentation into account. In PolitiFact's first year, it rated poor Joe Biden "Pants on Fire" for calling President Bush "brain-dead." Did anyone on the planet think Biden meant it as some type of medical diagnosis? No, I didn't think so. But PolitiFact treated it that way.
PolitiFact hasn't changed much. After the 2008 election cycle ended, the St. Petersburg Times ended its PolitiFact partnership with Congressional Quarterly and ran PolitiFact with its own staff while working to start up state versions of itself in partnership with other news outlets such as the Miami Herald. PolitiFact has waffled a bit with its "Half True" rating, and changed the name of "Barely True" to "Mostly False." It added features like the "Flip-O-Meter." But in essence, PolitiFact today performs like it did back in 2007 when it started out.
So Krugman could have leveled his criticism against PolitiFact back in 2007. What stopped him?
Oh, that's right. He's a political hack. If PolitiFact attacks his sacred cows then Krugman will sharpen his knives and go to work.
Krugman:
The simple fact is that in today’s US political scene, Republicans make a lot more factual howlers than Democrats. Sorry, but that’s just the way it is.
By "Sorry, but that's just the way it is" apparently Krugman is telling us he has no intention of pointing to an expert, study or data source in support of the purported fact.
Looks like a job for PolitiFact!
Dear Truth-O-Meter,
This week I read yet another political claim that appears dubious. This time the claim came from Paul Krugman.
The simple fact is that in today’s US political scene, Republicans make a lot more factual howlers than Democrats. Sorry, but that’s just the way it is.
PolitiFact's attempt to use an "In Context" item to soften the negative effects of President Obama's "you didn't build that" moment didn't work out so well.
Louis Jacobson: writer, researcher
Bill Adair: editor
Analysis:
Watch how many times PolitiFact uses partial quotations to protect its Obama from having his statement taken out of context. We have two already in the graphic up above ("is the result of government" "hard-working people").
PolitiFact tells us that the Romney campaign and the Obama campaign have been wrangling over whether the latter insulted entrepreneurs. That issue is somewhat settled when entrepreneurs perceive an insult. Romney wins that point. PolitiFact wants to let us know that Obama did not mean to insult entrepreneurs. And maybe attacking Romney in relation to this issue is the ticket.
The above summary is fair but potentially misleading. We'll watch for those effects as the story progresses.
PolitiFact:
In one fundraising e-mail [sic], Matt Rhoades, Romney’s campaign manager, decried Obama’s "naïve view that government, and not the hard work, talent, and initiative of people, is the center of society and the economy."
The email from Rhoades helps make it plain that PolitiFact distorts the Romney campaign's argument. The argument is that Obama credits the government too much, not that he doesn't credit entrepreneurs at all. Yet the latter is what PolitiFact suggests in its graphic.
PolitiFact:
In another campaign e-mail [sic], Amanda Henneberg, a Romney spokeswoman, said Obama had "denigrated Americans who built their own businesses."
Henneberg's statement dovetails with the Romney campaign message that Obama overemphasizes the role of government, but PolitiFact can potentially make it look like she is saying that Obama gives entrepreneurs no credit.
PolitiFact:
The issue has become so big that the Obama campaign felt the need to address the issue head-on in a Web video titled "Tampered" that quoted media accounts saying the quote had been taken out of context.
The current size of the issue could mean that the Romney campaign is right that that Obama is out of touch. But it would help Obama if it appeared that people were simply misled by Romney about what Obama said. PolitiFact did the Obama campaign a favor, by the way, by overlooking for the sake of this story the Obama campaign video suggesting Obama did not say what Romney quotes him to say.
Not only was Obama taken out of context, he didn't even say it in the first place.
President Obama recently said: "If you've got a business, you didn't build that. Somebody else made that happen."
Clearly, this President doesn't understand how our economy works.
Mitt Romney understands that we have to celebrate people who start enterprises and employ other people rather than devalue them. Success is not the result of government, it is the result of hard-working people who take risks, create dreams, and build lives for themselves and for their families.
PolitiFact:
In this item, we’ll rate the claim that Obama was saying success "is the result of government," not "hard-working people," when he said, "If you've got a business, you didn't build that. Somebody else made that happen."
PolitiFact distorts Romney's claim by taking his comments out of context. Ironic, no?
PolitiFact tries to set the stage by asserting that Romney's quote of Obama distorts the meaning of Obama's claim. In effect, PolitiFact suggests this is obvious if one reads Obama's statement in context. But doesn't the entire context of Obama's statement emphasize the role of the government in business creation at the expense of the entrepreneur? How does PolitiFact miss the obvious?
PolitiFact is checking this fact by proclaiming it obvious that the context of Obama's statement puts the lie to Romney's claim. Other fact checkers supposedly agree. Hopefully one or both of them actually bothered to check some facts.
There's really nothing like that in this fact check. It consists of PolitiFact insisting that Obama was taken out of context, and Romney's statements taken out of context make up the bulk of the case against Romney.
PolitiFact's conclusion, part one
In speeches and videos, the Romney campaign has repeatedly distorted Obama's words. By plucking two sentences out of context, Romney twists the president's remarks and ignores their real meaning.
The preceding sentences make clear that Obama was talking about the importance of government-provided infrastructure and education to the success of private businesses.
PolitiFact is partly right. Obama was extolling the importance of the government role in allowing business to prosper. He did so in the context of beneficiary businesses "giving back" as if it wasn't the taxes of businesses that helped pay for the infrastructure in the first place. And the words he used diminish the role of individual effort ("Let me tell you something -- there are a whole bunch of hardworking people out there").
Why does PolitiFact simply ignore the material in Obama's speech that diminishes the importance of the entrepreneur?
PolitiFact's conclusion, part two:
Romney also conveniently ignores Obama's clear summary of his message, that "the point is ... that when we succeed, we succeed because of our individual initiative, but also because we do things together."
By leaving out the "individual initiative" reference, Romney and his supporters have misled viewers and given a false impression. For that, we rate the claim False.
Romney ignores Obama's "clear summary" because the summary is ambiguous. The summary provides no justification for successful businesses "giving back." That concept comes out as Obama essentially tells entrepreneurs that they were lucky (others worked just as hard) and owe a big honkin' portion of their success to Our Glorious Government. And the government, Obama says, is ready to take its rightful cut.
By leaving out the reference to increasing taxes on entrepreneurs, PolitiFact misleads its readers and gives a false impression.
PolitiFact creates what Mr. Obama likes to call a "false choice." It isn't whether the government gets all the credit or the entrepreneur gets all the credit. It's which one has the lead role in the economy (bold emphasis added):
Matt Rhoades, Romney’s campaign manager, decried Obama’s "naïve view that government, and not the hard work, talent, and initiative of people, is the center of society and the economy."
By neglecting the importance of that context, PolitiFact again misleads readers and gives a false impression.
The grades:
Louis Jacobson: F
Bill Adair: F
Once again, the subject of the fact check was arguably more accurate than his would-be fact checkers.
Afters:
The fact checks by Annenberg Fact Check and the Washington Post Fact Checker essentially leap to the same conclusions PolitiFact achieved with its leaps of logic. But both of the other fact check services did a superior job to PolitiFact in providing context for the issue.
Aug. 4, 2012: Fixed a handful of minor typos/grammatical errors
After critiquing a few PolitiFact findings back in 2008, I summed up the problems I saw with the new fact-check kid on the block. With over 60 individual items graded since then, I have much more to draw from in assessing the PolitiFact animal.
I may have given as many as three passing grades thus far. Why is my grading so harsh? The easy answer is that PolitiFact deserves harsh grading. But I am not content offering the easy answer because I continue to believe that journalists tend to do their work sincerely and that failings of objectivity almost never arise as a planned feature of news reporting.
That still leaves me looking rather harsh for grading these sincere truth-excavators with strings of "F" grades. I grade harshly because of my respect for objective reporting. It is serious enough when literature bears the implicit label of "objective reporting." Putting opinion under that objective label is a form of lying. And producing literature with the label "fact-check" while under that objective label at least doubles the responsibility to get the reporting right. For any given week, chances are I can find an egregious failing in a PolitiFact fact-check claim.
Since my previous general assessment of PolitiFact, written back in 2008, one distinct improvement seems to have occurred. PolitiFact no longer lists the left-leaning fact-check site Media Matters on its list of sources. Though I can imagine ways that Media Matters could be used without sacrificing objectivity, the vast majority of fact-checks should not require any material at all from that source. Good riddance.
What problems linger?
PolitiFact's insistence on using the "Truth-O-Meter" graphic often traps the operation into unnecessarily interjecting opinion into its fact checking. The best example occurs when PolitiFact fails to collect enough information to establish a definitive rating but proceeds to produce a rating anyway. Media Matters appropriately called out PolitiFact on one such example involving Nancy Pelosi. When readers view the totals by individual or organization the ratings all look the same in terms of weight.
Individual entries often fail to properly offer a statement the benefit of doubt. For example, PolitiFact tends to take hyperbole literally, displays a tin ear when confronted with humor, and fails to undertake due diligence in otherwise respecting the context of various statements. PolitiFact's "Lie of the Year" for 2009 exemplifies this, as Sarah Palin's statement about Obama's "death panel" was taken literally and every effort was made to shoehorn the reference in with reference to specific provisions in the proposed health care legislation. These matters of interpretation allow the latent political bias in the newsroom to manifest itself. Writers and editors naturally exhibit sympathy for things they find agreeable, and correspondingly offer less sympathy for things they find disagreeable. The best journalists largely check their sympathies at the door, but newsrooms trend so markedly left that the workplace climate serves as a sort of "echo chamber." Drive past the Fenholloway River near Perry, Fla. and the visitor will smell the wood pulp. The locals won't notice it.
I mentioned above the tendency to include opinion under the banner of objective journalism. PolitiFact's "Lie of the Year" story again provides a clear example. When PolitiFact published a piece soliciting reader votes, it was freely admitted that the candidates for the title were picked by the editors (a write-in feature was apparently botched). But even something that obvious failed to warrant the alternate labeling expected in the American news paradigm, "opinion" or at least "news analysis."
Sometimes PolitiFact just makes unaccountable mistakes. A recent favorite came from a PolitiFact rating of Louisiana governor Bobby Jindal. Jindal said that the New Orleans Saints would set a national record if they went undefeated for the season and won the Super Bowl and called that feat "unprecedented." PolitiFact rightly pointed out that the Miami Dolphins went undefeated in 1972 and won the Super Bowl. But the story omitted all mention of the fact that the Dolphins accomplished the feat during the era when the regular season consisted of 14 games. One simply cannot omit that information on that particular fact check and call it fair.
Most perniciously, PolitiFact apparently continues to let its readership have a hand in story selection. The more skewed the coverage, the less likely the offended group will bother with PolitiFact. Thus any story selection bias coming from readers (minus some sort of organized effort by the minority) will tend to reinforce and perpetuate story selection bias.
The issue of bias
Is PolitiFact biased?
Yes, of course PolitiFact is biased. But probably not the way people expect.
The writers and editors almost certainly do not have plotting sessions during which they plan ways to favor liberal causes and persons. The bias comes from the fact that journalists tend to lean left (though most label themselves as "moderates").
The dominance of liberal thinking in the newsroom manifests itself when the newsroom determines which stories to cover. Stories reinforcing liberal politics will have an edge.
In like manner, the writing process will tend to forgive liberal legends more often than those distinctive of conservative origin.
The end product is flawed because it was produced by humans, and likely flawed with a tendency to favor the left.
PolitiFact's year-end stories helped provide evidence of its bias. One story highlighted the ten most popular PolitiFact stories as measured by page loads. All of the top ten stories were critical of conservatives or conservatism. Those numbers indicate that PolitiFact readers very probably skew to the ideological left. So let those readers influence story selection? Great idea!
Other than selection bias, what can possibly explain the fact that Nancy "Loose Cannon" Pelosi, she of the highest rank in the House of Representatives, managed to have just four statements rated for all of 2009? House Minority Leader John Boehner, for comparison, had 13 statements rated in 2009. Likewise in the Senate, Sen. Harry Reid had just one statement subjected to PolitiFact's scrutiny. His Republican counterpart, Sen. Mitch McConnell, was judged on six occasions. You do the math.
Conclusion
PolitiFact continues to fall far short of its promise. The idea is good. The reporters are reasonably talented. But the whole operation repeatedly fails to meet the basic standards for objective fact checking.
Louis Jacobson: writer, researcher
Martha Hamilton: editor
Analysis:
CSPAN helped provide context beyond that provided by PolitiFact:
Transcript mine, orange-yellow highlights indicate the portion used in the PolitiFact story and bold emphasis added (note that some subtle differences exist between my transcript and the one PolitiFact used):
HENSARLING:
Again, when I look at the statutory duty as opposed to the statutory goals of this committee, uh, our duty is to frankly offer recommendations and statutory language to address both the short term and long term imbalance. With respect to the short term imbalance, um, is it not true that the, um, stimulus bill, um, with interest, amounts to over a trillion dollars of spending which accounts for a large temporary growth in our discretionary budget?
ELMENDORF:
Um, yes, although as you know, congressman, only a part of the Recovery Act was about discretionary spending; there were also increases in mandatory spending and reductions in taxes. In total we put it a little over $800 billion and including interest I think you're right, about a trillion. Um, and it did lead to a bulge in discretionary funding and then to uh, um, an attenuated bulge in outlays because not all the money gets spent right away.
HENSARLING:
I don't know if you have at your fingertips numbers with respect to agency growth. I had quoted a few andnow that I look down apparently the source is your office so I hope I'm quoting your office correctly ...
ELMENDORF:
Um, I don't have those at hand, Mr. Congressman, but if they're from us you can certainly trust them.
HENSARLING:
I can trust them (laughs).Well then I trust that when you add in the stimulus the Commerce Department has grown 219 percent from '08 to '10, that with the stimulus EPA has grown 830.8 percent, the Energy Department has grown 170.7 percent with the stimulus, Education has grown 180.6 percent at a time when the economy has actually seen negative economic growth and family paychecks, um, have shrunk. And unfortunately, again this is not the forum in which to debate the stimulus, but I think it has to be noted when we're talking about areas of the budget where savings could be had; at least the American people certainly deserve the facts.
(conversation shifts to discussion of CBO's alternative scenario and the increase in mandatory spending)
Hensarling identifies short term and long term responsibilities for the committee and uses the stimulus and its effect on agency growth to add concrete detail. The subsequent discussion of the growth in mandatory spending fits with Hensarling's mention of a long term imbalance.
PolitiFact:
During an Oct. 26, 2011, hearing of the congressional Joint Select
Committee on Deficit Reduction -- the "supercommittee" that’s charged
with making steep cuts in the federal budget -- the co-chairman, Rep.
Jeb Hensarling, R-Texas, offered budgetary statistics designed to show
massive spending increases by federal agencies in recent years.
PolitiFact's summary misses Hensarling's broader point in focusing on agency growth, and PolitiFact's cropping of the exchange between Hensarling and Elmendorf cuts away most of the contextual clues that communicate that broader point. The only remaining clue is the word "temporary" in the first sentence PolitiFact quotes from Hensarling.
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.
We can already see this fact check veering off track.
PolitiFact:
When this exchange got picked up in a Fox News Web article, a reader saw it and asked us whether Hensarling’s numbers were accurate. So we took a look.
This paragraph makes it appear that PolitiFact abdicated to a reader how to direct the focus of the fact check. If the reader wants a focus just on the number and not on the underlying point--the latter supposedly the most important aspect of a numbers claim according to PolitiFact bigwig Bill Adair--then who is PolitiFact to object?
Before moving on, it is worth noting that Fox News did a poor job of presenting Hensarling's statement in context. The Fox News version makes it appear that Hensarling was focused solely on agency growth and mostly dropped the context of the impact of the stimulus on the near-term budget.
PolitiFact:
As Hensarling stated at the hearing, he was adding together the 2010
authority and the stimulus amount to arrive at his percentage increase.
And using that method, the numbers do work out. But is it a fair method
to use? We have a few problems with it.
Hensarling combines several years of stimulus spending into a
single year, exaggerating the actual amount of budgetary growth between
2008 and 2010.
Lumping all of the budget authority from the stimulus into one year
makes the final year of his two-year comparison higher, even if the
stimulus money was actually spent over multiple years. This juices the
percentage increases he cited at the hearing.
PolitiFact makes a fair point here, despite Hensarling saying that he was adding the stimulus numbers in to obtain the increase. Even with Hensarling's description the method is misleading, though his underlying argument about the effect of the stimulus remains valid.
PolitiFact:
Hensarling leaves out that stimulus spending was always supposed to be temporary.
Hensarling is guilty of cherry-picking for another reason: The stimulus was designed to be temporary.
If Hensarling appears to leave out that stimulus spending was temporary, that is only because PolitiFact left out the parts of the context where Hensarling attached his comments about the stimulus to a short term increase in discretionary spending.
The second criticism from PolitiFact has no merit. Indeed, PolitiFact quoted Hensarling as saying "temporary growth" in referring to the stimulus bill.
PolitiFact:
The Commerce Department figures are skewed by a different temporary bump -- from the 2010 Census.
PolitiFact makes another fair point, though again it does not appear to significantly affect Hensarling's underlying message that the stimulus has temporarily added considerably to the budgets of some federal agencies.
PolitiFact prepares to issue its ruling:
We understand the arguments behind Hensarling’s methodological choices,
but we still believe the path he chose cherry-picked the highest
possible increase that the numbers would allow -- one several times
higher than other ways to measure the same figure.
Would that PolitiFact had shared the rationale behind Hensarling's supposed methodological choices. Readers may continue to wonder whether Hensarling chose the methodology or simply elected to use the statement from the House Budget Committee (to which Hensarling does not belong). Again, it's hard not to detect an inconsistency between PolitiFact's treatment of Hensarling with its easy acceptance of wealth disparity estimates cited by Democrat Alan Grayson.
PolitiFact:
He lumped all stimulus spending into a single year, even though the
spending was spread over several years. The year he chose to assign the
stimulus spending to -- 2010 -- was not even the year the budget
authority had been granted. And he obscured the fact that much of the
enormous increases he cited stemmed from temporary factors, whether it’s
the stimulus or spending on the decennial Census. We rule this claim
False.
PolitiFact makes a fair point that Hensarling's numbers maximize the budget increases well into the realm of exaggeration. PolitiFact is off base in claiming Hensarling obscured the temporary nature of the stimulus spending. The point about the Commerce Department is fair but relatively minor.
With two out of three points on fairly solid ground, is the rating fair?
I'd say no. Leaving aside the "True" rating Grayson received for what looked like a classic case of cherry picking, Hensarling has a legitimate message underlying the exaggerated numbers. This case again fits a pattern that has underlying messages ignored if they help a conservative or ignored/reinterpreted if they harm a liberal.
The grades:
Louis Jacobson: F
Martha Hamilton: F
Jacobson also wrote the Grayson item to which I have referred in this review, so his "F" is richly deserved. Hamilton flunks for apparently not catching the fact that Hensarling was quite clear that the effects of the stimulus are temporary.
Afters:
I have concerns about PolitiFact's fact check stemming from the complexity of the written federal budget. If Hensarling or the House Budget Committee had a justifiable rationale for crunching the numbers as it did, it's hard to see why PolitiFact shouldn't give Hensarling a Boxer Mulligan on this one.
Except that Boxer is a Democrat and Hensarling isn't.
I've taken the PolitiFact fact-checkers to task a number of times over the past months. Despite the backing of Congressional Quarterly and the St. Petersburg Times, PolitiFact's efforts place it in the lower echelon in the fact-checking biz, well below Annenberg and the Washington Post. Instead, PolitiFact rates on a par with Media Matters, albeit with a lower degree of blatant partisanship than the latter.
I've decided to ramp up my coverage of PolitiFact since nobody else is doing it. In this post I'll provide an overview of PolitiFact and a review of its problems.
PolitiFact is a project of the St. Petersburg Times and Congressional Quarterly to help you find the truth in the presidential campaign. Every day, reporters and researchers from the Times and CQ will analyze the candidates' speeches, TV ads and interviews and determine whether the claims are accurate. >> More
Though PolitiFact is expressly intended to "help you find the truth in the presidential campaign," their presentations tend to focus on small issues in a big way, and present judgments in a manner that lends itself to distortion.
An example from the recent past shows the emphasis on the unimportant. PolitiFact composed an entry to address the following statement from Barack Obama:"Right now, an employer has more of a chance of getting hit by lightning than be prosecuted for hiring an undocumented worker. That has to change."Obvious hyperbole, right? PolitiFact jumped all over it and found Obama had spoken false. The chance of being hit by lightning is less than that for prosecution for hiring an undocumented worker. The big surprise is that PolitiFact did not break down lightning strikes geographically and according to personal habits (like habitually carrying around a big metal antenna during a thunderstorm) in order to evaluate the claim.
And here is the thing: Though the self-description at PolitiFact claims that its writers and researchers review speeches and ads and use their own news judgment to choose topics, I received a response from Matthew Waite ("Developer of PolitiFact") that indicated that news judgment was influenced by reader questions. So, I guess I can judge PolitiFact "half true" regarding the way they describe their methods. Seriously, allowing reader input to steer the process introduces a potential bias in choosing the subject matter. In this case, PolitiFact compounded the bias problem by somehow forgetting to even mention the concept of hyperbole in its condemnation of Obama's truth-telling.
Another recent case shows another problem with PolitiFact. Check out the first four sources listed for this item about an Obama attack on McCain:
See the sore thumb? That's right, "Media Matters" listed as though it was not partisan news commentary but was instead a trusted news source. Serious researchers would not list Media Matters among their list of sources even if they were naive/biased enough to use it for research in the first place. Media Matters will not have contributed any reporting on the facts of the story. Just slanted analysis. And speaking of the potential bias in having readers help choose the subject matter in political fact checking ... Media Matters is a pretty good bet to involve itself in activism on behalf of its editorial position.
In addition to outsourcing its news judgment and using partisan sources, PolitiFact makes another key error that will forever keep credibility beyond its feeble grasp: the use of the cheesy "Truth O Meter" graphic. For some reason that utterly escapes me, they're proud of it:
PolitiFact (pronounced puh-lit’-eh-fact) is bolder than previous journalistic fact-checking efforts because we’ll make a call, declaring whether a claim is True, Mostly True, Half True, Barely True or False. We even have a special category for the most ridiculous claims that we call “Pants on Fire.”
"Bolder." That's supposed to be good.
The heart of PolitiFact is the Truth-O-Meter, which we use to rate the candidates’ claims and attacks.
The Truth-O-Meter is based on the concept that – especially in politics - truth is not black and white. Depending on how much information a candidate provides, a statement can be half true or barely true without being false.
Begging to differ, truth is black and white. However, it's not always proper to append a label because one statement could combine enough black and white together so that the statement looks gray from a distance. In replying to Matthew Waite, I reiterated my past observation that the "Truth O Meter" is ultimately misleading, particularly when applied to statements such as the Obama hyperbole mentioned above. PolitiFact rated Obama's statement "False." But to a reasonable person, Obama's point was that prosecution for hiring illegals is very rare--and no more than that. In particular, Obama was almost certainly not making any literal comparative claim between prosecutions and lightning strikes.
Yet PolitiFact found the statement false!
If the folks at PolitiFact insist on grading hyperbole and other figures of speech false, then the grading system they chose is inadequate. It would be fair to rate hyperbole false while at the same time pointing out how the less-than-true literal meaning actually accords with a literally true message from the candidate: Prosecution for hiring undocumented workers is too rare.
Unless PolitiFact comes up with a more precise way of grading, the "Truth O Meter" should be tossed on the scrap heap. I know the Times is currently under the control of graphic designers and not dedicated journalists, but the designer of the graphic will get over it. Eventually.
So, until PolitiFact gets serious about its work by hiring me or somebody like me to cure the problems before they are presented to the world via the Internet, I'll be putting increased emphasis on exposing the more spectacular gaffes.
Update:
My periodic polemics addressing PolitiFact flim-flam are well underway.
While I anticipate that PolitiFact's mistakes exhibit a pattern of liberal partisanship, my critiques are not designed to establish any such pattern. I will critique what suits me, and ordinarily that will tend to involve my support of conservative issues that tend to receive unfair treatment by the media.
I do not think that journalists ordinarily do anything other than attempt to report and fact-check objectively (though the current political season has challenged my belief on that point). Journalists are simply subject to some of the same misconceptions and misperceptions as ordinary folks and it creeps into their writing as a result.
I keep hoping that criticism will influence positive change at PolitiFact, the fact checking arm of the St. Petersburg Times (soon changing its name to the Tampa Bay Times).
Well, a positive change occurred at PolitiFact recently.
Unfortunately, it was of the "one step forward, two steps back" variety.
For some time I've carped about PolitiFact's inconsistent standards, and in particular its publishing of two different standards for its "Half True" position on the "Truth-O-Meter."
The recent change probably stemmed from a message I sent to an editor at the paper's city desk (sent Nov. 9):
PolitiFact has created a problem for itself through inconsistency. During the site's earlier years a page called "About PolitiFact"
gave information about how the "Flip-O-Meter" and the "Truth-O-Meter"
supposedly operate. The page includes a description of each of the
"Truth-O-Meter" rating categories.
More recently, editor Bill Adair posted an item called "Principles of PolitiFact and the Truth-O-Meter."
The problem? The definition for "Half True" is different than the one
PolitiFact posted for well over a year prior. Compounding the problem,
PolitiFact has kept both versions online through now.
1) The statement is accurate but leaves out important details or takes things out of context.
2) The statement is partially accurate but leaves out important details or takes things out of context.
I'll
be interested to see the eventual remedy. Which items over
PolitiFact's history went by which definition? Was a change made in Feb.
2011 or before without any announcement? How can PolitiFact
legitimately offer report cards and "Truth Index" ratings if the grading
system isn't consistent? Those are questions I'd imagine readers would
have if they realized PolitiFact is using two different definitions for
the same rating. I don't expect you to answer them for my sake (not
that I would mind if you did).
Good luck to all sorting this one out.
The eventual remedy is apparently to simply change the longstanding definition at "About PolitiFact" to match the newer one at "Principles of PolitiFact and the Truth-O-Meter" without any fanfare--indeed, without any apparent notice whatsoever. I detect no admission of error at all and no acknowledgment that PolitiFact changed its standard.
On the positive side, the definitions are now consistent with one another.
On the negative side, PolitiFact either created a past illusion where Truth-O-Meter ratings used the old system or else created a fresh illusion that past ratings follow the new system. And went about it in about the least transparent way possible.
(Clipped from PolitiFact.com; click image for enlarged view)
Contact PolitiFact Wisconsin. They didn't get the memo yet. And PolitiFact Texas has the same problem.
It's not the crime, it's the coverup.
Update 2:
It's also worth remembering PolitiFact's agonizing decision to change "Barely True" to "Mostly False."
"It is a change we don't make lightly," wrote Bill Adair.
How do you like that? A change in the wording of a rating gets a reader survey prior to the change and an article announcing the change. A change in the definition of a rating--a much more substantial change--gets the swept-under-the-rug treatment.
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
To assess the truth for a numbers claim, the biggest factor is the underlying message.
--Bill Adair, PolitiFact editor
PolitiFact, we are told, examines claims in their full context including the comments made before and after. Plus PolitiFact examines the point the person was trying to make.
Some of us don't believe that PolitiFact applies its principles evenly across the board.
AMYGOODMAN: Michael, your comments on Hero Vincent and all that are down there?
MICHAELMOORE:Well, it’s highly ironic that now over 100 of the protesters have been arrested and not a single banker, a CEO
from Wall Street, anyone from corporate America — nobody, not one
arrest of any of these people who brought down the economy in 2008. Who
created schemes, financial schemes that not only destroyed the economy,
but took away the future of this generation, of this young man and his
children in the future. They have completely ruined it for people while
they have become filthy rich. Not one of them arrested, but 100 of these
people who have stood up non-violently against this madness, and
they’re arrested? This just boggles the mind. I want to say something,
too, because, Amy, you’ve lived here, in this area, in the city for
probably most of your life. I have been here for many years. By and
large, the New York City cops are actually pretty good as police forces
go.
In terms of the interview context, Moore's statement amounts, at least at first blush, to a red herring or a "you, too!" fallacy. The red herring is a fallacy of distraction, distracting from any wrongdoing by the protesters by shifting the focus to "these people who brought down the economy." And perhaps Moore attempts to excuse the protestors' actions because of the banking evildoers went unpunished, which would qualify as a version of the "you, too!" fallacy--excusing one set of actions based on the actions of another.
And what of Moore's underlying point? Is his point best described as one of the aforementioned fallacies or something else?
Let's get the PolitiFact take on things:
We read the samesentimentrepeated on Twitter from people supporting the Occupy Wall Street movement's protests.
We've noticed news reports before that have noted a general lack of
prosecutions. But we wanted to know if Moore and others were right that
not a single banker or corporate executive had been arrested. So we
decided to check it out.
PolitiFact just explained to its readers why this story was done. This issue had come to the attention of the PolitiFact staff well before Moore opened his mouth. Moore's statement on Democracy Now! gave PolitiFact an excuse to do a story the editors wanted to see. That's selection bias by definition. And it probably accounts for PolitiFact's failure to take the context or Moore's point into account when it comes time to determine the position of the "Truth-O-Meter" needle: PolitiFact is not interested in anything other than the literal claim in this case.
PolitiFact:
To summarize our findings, we found a few prosecutions, but not many.
And we wouldn't describe the targets as the people who were responsible
for bringing down the economy.
So the claim is "False"? Moore did appear to emphasize the total lack of prosecutions three different ways during the course of a single sentence:
not a single banker , a CEO
from Wall Street, anyone (1) from corporate America — nobody (2), not one (3)
arrest of any of these people who brought down the economy in 2008
Of course Moore repeated the charge a couple of sentences later, if anyone's counting.
Alas, if we skip to the end we find PolitiFact awarding Moore a "Mostly True" rating. So now we get the fun of seeing PolitiFact reconcile Moore's inaccuracy with the favorable "Truth-O-Meter" rating as we move through the body of the story.
PolitiFact:
If you're looking for arrests and prosecutions against executives associated with the biggest banks,
you won't find them.
Heh. "If" we're looking for arrests and prosecutions against executives associated with the biggest banks.
Indeed, PolitiFact's language hints at at a couple of unaddressed problem in the story. Who was responsible for the economic collapse? And if we can find a responsible group, were their actions illegal?
For purposes of its fact check, PolitiFact appears to accept Moore's premise that some group of corporate executives was responsible for the economic collapse and that their actions were illegal.
PolitiFact:
And we found no arrests of execs with the firms
most widely associated with the financial crisis such as Countrywide,
AIG or Lehman Brothers.
The highest-profile convictions we found were from Taylor, Bean & Whitaker,
which was a mortgage lending firm based not on Wall Street, but in
Ocala, Fla. Its former chairman, Lee B. Farkas, was convicted of
directing nearly $3 billion in fraud that put thousands out of work and
contributed to the collapse of Colonial Bank.
For review, Moore claimed that nobody from corporate America, Wall Street CEO's and "not a single banker" had been arrested. The Taylor, Bean & Whitaker case by itself provides a number of arrests contradicting Moore, but PolitiFact blurs Moore's claim, making it appear that the conviction of Farkas almost shouldn't count since he wasn't a Wall Street CEO.
In the wake of the financial crisis, President Obama launched a task force intended to push for appropriate legal action against banking fraud:
The sweep was organized by President Obama’s interagency Financial Fraud
Enforcement Task Force, which was established to lead an aggressive,
coordinated and proactive effort to investigate and prosecute financial
crimes. Starting on March 1, to date Operation Stolen Dreams has
involved 1,215 criminal defendants nationwide, including 485 arrests,
who are allegedly responsible for more than $2.3 billion in losses.
Additionally, to date the operation has resulted in 191 civil
enforcement actions which have resulted in the recovery of more than
$147 million.
Does Moore want Countrywide execs arrested even if federal investigators do not believe they can successfully prosecute the case?
PolitiFact (bold emphasis added):
There have been many other prosecutions of mortgage fraud and insider
trading. The U.S. Justice Department pointed us to its StopFraud.gov
website, and sent us a long list of other ongoing actions against mortgage fraud, investment fraud, insider trading and other corporate offenses.
But the cases have not involved the highly prominent executives Moore described as bringing down the U.S. economy.
Seriously? Moore said nobody from corporate America had been arrested. Wall Street CEO's were just one group within the broader statement he made. PolitiFact is spinning on Moore's behalf and ignoring the quotation from Moore used in the story's headline. If PolitiFact wanted to focus just on Wall Street CEO's then maybe the PolitiFact team should have written something to that effect. As it stands we have Moore's statement applying to "anyone from corporate America" cozied up next to the "Mostly True" Truth-O-Meter graphic.
Isn't that a bit misleading?
PolitiFact:
In reviewing the research and talking to experts about why there have
not been more prosecutions associated with the financial crisis, we
found several reasons.
For one thing, such cases tend to be difficult, and it's not immediately clear what offenses executives could be charged with.
Not clear what offenses executives could be charged with? Maybe Moore should have considered that before he opened his yap.
Then again, there's no need for Moore to consider it when he can get outfits like PolitiFact to cover for him.
Consider this: Moore's statement mentioned irony. In comparison to the arrests of "nonviolent" protesters it is supposedly ironic that authorities failed to arrest figures from corporate America who caused the financial crisis. Moore's statement assumes we know who caused the financial crisis and strongly suggests that their actions in doing so were criminal actions. The latter is Moore's real underlying point, and PolitiFact found only weak evidence supporting that point.
Did I mention that Moore's upper-class evildoers are apparently just as nonviolent as the protesters?
Where's the irony, again?
PolitiFact's conclusion (blue highlights added):
Our ruling
Moore said, "Not a single banker, a CEO from Wall Street, anyone from
corporate America — nobody, (there was) not one arrest of any of these
people who brought down the economy in 2008." Well, there have been a
few arrests. Certainly the executives of Taylor, Bean & Whitaker who
were arrested would qualify as "corporate America."
But Moore's larger point is correct -- there have been very few arrests
among executives of firms the public would associate with causing the
financial crisis. Obama implied in his recent remarks that it was
because many of their actions weren't criminal.
Whatever the cause, we rate Moore's statement Mostly True.
The spinners at PolitiFact tell their readers that Moore's "larger point"--that not many "executives of firms the public would associate with causing the financial crisis" were arrested--is correct.
Sorry, but that supposed "larger point" does not result in any significant irony when we consider Moore's remarks in context.
This fact check involving Moore provides us yet another example of a public figure saying something kind of close to a fact check PolitiFact wanted to do. PolitiFact wanted to do a story on the low number of prosecutions stemming from the financial crisis. So they just interpreted Moore to agree with their preconceived agenda and wrote the story accordingly.
There's good evidence that hundreds of figures from corporate America were arrested based on fraud charges from the time period when the financial meltdown occurred. Moore claimed no arrests had occurred. Not one. His underlying point was that many figures from corporate America had committed illegal acts in bringing on the financial crisis yet had escaped arrest.
An inaccurate claim combined with an extremely dubious and ill-supported underlying argument should not lead to a "Mostly True" rating on the "Truth-O-Meter." If it does, something's wrong.
The grades:
Angie Drobnic Holan: F
Martha Hamilton: F
Agenda journalism results in PolitiFact ignoring its principle of taking context into consideration.
Afters:
For good measure, here's a reminder of what can happen if you use language similar to Moore's yet PolitiFact minimizes the weight of your underlying point (bold emphasis added):
If Boehner had offered a more measured assessment, he would have had a
fair point about the differences between Obama’s fiscal approach and
that outlined by the commission. The president certainly could have gone
further in embracing the recommendations of the panel he had
commissioned. But he did embrace a wide variety of them, so to say
bluntly, as Boehner did, that Obama "took exactly none of his own
deficit reduction commission’s ideas" is simply not correct. To one
degree or another, the commission’s recommendations are sprinkled
throughout Obama’s budget proposals, in recognizable -- if not always in
identical -- form. So we rate Boehner’s statement False.
The above is not to suggest that PolitiFact has eliminated its inconsistency with respect to defining the "Half True" rating. But that's another story.
Louis Jacobson: writer, researcher
Bill Adair: editor
Analysis:
I repeatedly try to give PolitiFact the benefit of the doubt as trying to do its job fairly and objectively. Cases like this one featuring Reince Priebus make granting the benefit of the doubt very difficult. Cases like this one look like simple partisan hackwork instead of journalism. Comparing this fact check with one of President Obama helps highlight the mockery of journalistic objectivity, especially since writer/researcher Louis Jacobson and editor Bill Adair contributed to both stories.
PolitiFact introduces us to the statement by RNC chairman Reince Priebus (bold emphasis added):
Priebus pointed to what he saw as a range of problems with the law, but we zeroed in on one claim. "While millions will be added to the government rolls, millions more will also lose their current health-care coverage," Priebus wrote, later explaining, "According to the (Congressional Budget Office), as many as 20 million Americans could lose their employer-based insurance thanks to Obamacare."
Is the health care law really going to leave 20 million American workers without health insurance from their employers?
Note that the second paragraph asks a question that alters Priebus' claim. The Obama story does the exact same thing, so both stories contain the same type of error on this point. Both men said "as much as" and PolitiFact dropped the phrase in both cases while identifying the target claim of the fact check.
PolitiFact:
When we asked the RNC to back up its number, a spokeswoman pointed us to a March 2012 study by the Congressional Budget Office. We often cite CBO’s research because we consider their work to be independent, nonpartisan and credible. We wondered whether Priebus had used CBO’s figure appropriately, and with sufficient context.
It's fair to judge Priebus on whether Priebus used the CBO figure accurately and appropriately along with sufficient context. If PolitiFact uses similar standards for figures like the president then so much the better.
Years ago, I pointed out to PolitiFact that it had offered readers two different definitions of "Half True." In November 2011, I posted to note PolitiFact's apparent acknowledgment of the problem, evidenced by its effort to resolve the discrepant definitions.
It's over five years later. But PolitiFact Florida (archived version, just in case PolitiFact Florida notices something amiss) either did not get the memo or failed to fully implement the change.
We then decide which of our six rulings should apply:
TRUE – The statement is accurate and there’s nothing significant missing. MOSTLY TRUE – The statement is accurate but needs clarification or additional information. HALF TRUE – The statement is accurate but leaves out important details or takes things out of context. MOSTLY FALSE – The statement contains some element of truth but ignores critical facts that would give a different impression. FALSE – The statement is not accurate. PANTS ON FIRE – The statement is not accurate and makes a ridiculous claim.
PolitiFact Florida still publishes what was apparently the original standard PolitiFact definition of "Half True." PolitiFact National revised its definition in 2011, adding "partially" to the definition so it read "The statement is partially accurate but leaves out important details or takes things out of context."
It's not even clear if PolitiFact Florida's main page links to PolitiFact Florida's "About" page. It may be a vestigial limb of sorts, helping us trace PolitiFact's evolution.
In one sense, the inconsistency means relatively little. After all, PolitiFact's founder, Bill Adair, has himself said that the "Truth-O-Meter" ratings are "entirely subjective." That being the case, it matters little whether "partially" occurs in the definition of "Half True."
The main problem from the changing definition comes from PolitiFact's irresponsible publication of candidate "report cards" that supposedly help voters decide which candidate they ought to support.
Why should subjective report cards make any difference in preferring one candidate over another?
The changing definition creates one other concern--one that I've written about before: Academic researchers (who really ought to know better) keep trying to use PolitiFact's ratings as though they represent reliable truth measurements. That by itself is a preposterous idea, given the level of subjectivity inherent in PolitiFact's system. But the inconsistency of the definition of "Half True" makes it even sillier.
PolitiFact's repeated failure to fix the problems we point out helps keep us convinced that PolitiFact checks facts poorly. We think a left-leaning ideological bubble combined with the Dunning-Kruger effect best explains PolitiFact's behavior in these cases.
Words matter -- We pay close attention to the specific
wording of a claim. Is it a precise statement? Does it contain
mitigating words or phrases?
--Principles of PolitiFact and the Truth-O-Meter
Louis Jacobson: writer, researcher
Martha Hamilton: editor
Robert Farley and Bill Adair filled the corresponding roles for the Sunstein item.
Analysis:
Before examining the text of PolitiFact's fact check, let's take a moment to look at the initial presentation of the two items we're comparing.
The top portions seem very comparable. Gingrich is said to have "suggested" something and Sunstein is said to have "advocated" something.
The middle portions differ. In Brooks' case, the headline material stick with the narrow description of Brooks, claim, paraphrasing "has suggested" with "once proposed." The nearby "Truth-O-Meter tells readers what to think of Brooks' claim ("True"). PolitiFact handles the chain email differently. Instead of paraphrasing the material just above, PolitiFact includes its assessment in the statement. And we get the "Half True" graphic. The "then thought better of it" part ends up justifying a rating other than "True."
Now let's follow PolitiFact's little tale about Brooks and Gingrich--both conservatives, so there's something for everyone to like on both sides of the partisan divide.
PolitiFact:
Brooks cites negatively what he considered half-baked ideas by
Gingrich. "For example, he has called for ‘a massive new program to
build a permanent lunar colony to exploit the moon’s resources.’ He has
suggested that ‘a mirror system in space could provide the light
equivalent of many full moons so that there would be no need for
nighttime lighting of the highways.’"
The space-mirror system seemed so outlandish that we felt compelled to check whether Gingrich really suggested it.
So that's the issue: Did Gingrich suggest the space mirror system Brooks mentions?
In the item we're using for comparison, PolitiFact was checking the claim (quoting PolitiFact) that "President Barack Obama's nominee to be the administration's regulatory
czar once advocated a "Fairness Doctrine" of sorts for the Internet, one
that would require partisan sites to link to sites with opposing
viewpoints."
PolitiFact did not receive a response from Brooks asking for the source of his claim. PolitiFact surmised the source was Andrew Ferguson in the New York Times magazine. But Ferguson's account only hints at the notion that the space mirrors were Gingrich's suggestion. As PolitiFact presented it:
Here’s a portion of what Ferguson wrote:
"Gingrich’s first book, Window of Opportunity: A Blueprint for the Future,
came out in 1984 and contained the seeds of much of what was to follow.
Beneath its cover image — a flag-draped eagle inexplicably threatening
the space shuttle— the backbencher Gingrich was identified as chairman
of the congressional Space Caucus, a position that inspired a series of
‘space cadet’ jokes that took years to die. Window of Opportunity was co-written by Gingrich’s second wife, Marianne, and a science-fiction writer called David Drake. ...
"In Window of Opportunity, Gingrich introduced himself as a
futurist, a role he has played off and on throughout his career. There
are problems inherent in futurism, most of them involving the future,
which the futurist is obliged to predict (it’s his job) and which seldom
cooperates as he would hope. Gingrich has called some and missed some.
In 1984, he saw more clearly than most that computers would touch every
aspect of commercial and private life, but nobody any longer wants to
build ‘a large array of mirrors [that] could affect the earth’s
climate,’ warming it up so farmers could extend the growing season."
Because the quotes from Brooks and Ferguson are slightly different, we
wanted to look directly at the book ourselves before making our
judgment.
It isn't that what Brooks and Ferguson wrote is simply "slightly different." That's fairly normal with a paraphrase. The problem that invites deeper investigation is the uncertainty as to whether Gingrich advocated a system of space mirrors. So it apparently comes down to the book.
PolitiFact:
In the book, Gingrich proposes (among many other ideas) "five simple
steps to a bold future" in space, most unusually a lottery in which
randomly selected taxpayers would win a spot on a space shuttle flight.
But the floating mirror idea isn’t on this list. Instead, it’s included
in Gingrich's recap of a June 1979, NASA-sponsored new concepts
symposium in Woods Hole, Mass., "where 30 experts brainstormed a range
of pioneering options for NASA worthy of Lewis and Clark."
Just in case the paragraph above obscures PolitiFact's findings, they did not find Gingrich mentioning mirrors when he gave recommendations. They found the mirrors mentioned when he presented some ideas from a NASA-sponsored brainstorming session.
Where's the advocacy?
PolitiFact (bold emphasis added):
Here’s how Gingrich summarized the idea:
"The climate group at the Woods Hole conference suggested that a large
array of mirrors could affect the earth’s climate by increasing the
amount of sunlight received by particular areas, citing recent
feasibility studies exploring the possibilities of preventing frosts in
Florida or enabling farmers in high altitudes to plant their wheat
earlier.
"A mirror system in space could provide the light equivalent of many
full moons so that there would be no need for nighttime lighting of the
highways. Ambient light covering entire areas could reduce the current
danger of criminals lurking in the darkness. Mirrors could be arranged
to light given metropolitan areas only during particular periods,
so there would be darkness late at night for sleeping."
Brooks’ portrayal glosses over the fact that Gingrich was primarily
reciting proposals made by participants at a NASA-sponsored forum.
Still, Gingrich cited them approvingly.
I have Gingrich's book before me as I write. The relevant passage occurs in Chapter 2: "Americans and the Greatest Frontier." PolitiFact's reporting about the book is perfectly accurate and complete, except I can't figure out the justification for the claim "Gingrich cited them approvingly." Clearly Gingrich found the ideas coming out of the brainstorm session exciting. That's reason enough to put them in a book. But can we justify an equivalency between that and specific advocacy of the space mirror idea?
Where's the advocacy? PolitiFact admits that Gingrich was "primarily" citing the proposals of others. We get no objective evidence of the type of advocacy Brooks suggests.
PolitiFact:
Still, we didn’t want to stop with a look at whether Brooks framed the
issue fairly. We also wanted to know whether this was ever a mainstream
idea -- and whether it’s technologically feasible.
These issues are irrelevant to whether Brooks' claim is true. They are relevant to Brooks' apparent underlying argument that Gingrich's supposed suggestion of putting mirrors in space is crazy.
Of course, that kind of sidesteps the concept of a brainstorming session (come up with ideas regardless of merit) and ignores the prestige, if any, of the participants at NASA's symposium. Apparently the space mirror idea came from climate scientists. Some people have suggested space mirrors could help alleviate problems associated with global climate change.
PolitiFact's story acknowledges the global warming connection through the testimony of one science expert, though it concludes with a kicker quotation from another supposedly neutral expert:
Raymond S. Bradley, a geoscientist at the University of Massachusetts,
put it simply: "This is not a mainstream idea. It is one of the dumbest
ideas I have heard of."
Bradley doesn't sound like the sort of person who would fit in well at a brainstorming session.
But all this window dressing aside, where's the advocacy?
PolitiFact:
Our ruling
Gingrich co-wrote his book more than a quarter century ago, and since
he doesn’t appear to have reiterated the call for floating mirrors in
recent years, we can safely assume the idea is no longer at the top of
his policy agenda. But did cite the idea approvingly in his book, so we
rate Brooks’ statement True.
Funny. The gracious snarkmeisters at PolitiFact can assume the idea is "no longer at the top of Gingrich's policy agenda." This after their story failed to turn up any evidence that the idea had ever been anywhere on Gingrich's policy agenda.
We reach the end of PolitiFact's analysis without any solid evidence that Gingrich ever advocated the idea of placing giant mirrors in space for any reason at all, yet David Brooks warrants a "True" rating?
No, I haven't forgotten the comparison to Cass Sunstein:
Yes, Sunstein acknowledges this was an idea he once threw out there —
albeit, in his words, "tentatively." But he now thinks it's a bad idea.
So the chain e-mail/article is correct that Sunstein once suggested it.
But contrary to the headline, it's a position he no longer holds, as he
has since said strongly and repeatedly. Once true. No longer. That
leaves us at Half True.
Readers may notice a discordant thread in the above conclusion. PolitiFact's own headline material does not match in substance the World Net Daily headline associated with the story about Sunstein. The fact check was of the chain email. While PolitiFact did not provide a copy of the email, it's at least clear that the claim PolitiFact highlighted in its headline material is a true claim. The entire justification for dropping the chain email claim apparently comes from the World Net Daily headline. Applying that standard to PolitiFact, their story fact checking the claim about Sunstein is "Half True."
PolitiFact provided no evidence that Gingrich had advocated a system of space mirrors.
PolitiFact found that Sunstein definitely had advocated a type of fairness doctrine for the Internet.
Gingrich did not write to withdraw his space mirror proposal as Sunstein did with his Internet fairness doctrine, but the most obvious explanation for that comes from the fact that Gingrich didn't advocate putting up space mirrors in the first place.
Yet the claim about Gingrich received a "True" rating ("The statement is accurate and there’s nothing significant missing.") while the claim about Sunstein received a rating of "Half True" ("The statement is partially accurate but leaves out important details or takes things out of context.")
It isn't relevant that Gingrich never specifically advocated the idea right through to the present day?
Seriously?
The grades:
Louis Jacobson: F
Martha Hamilton: F
Robert Farley and Bill Adair receive honorary failing grades for the bait-and-switch technique they used to justify the "Half True" rating on the Sunstein claim. People in glass houses ...
