What's wrong with this picture?

Today while doing research I ran across "NewsTrust," a website intended to help separate wheat from chaff in the world of journalism.  NewsTrust develops ratings on a scale from 0.0 to 5.0 to help users determine the level of trust for various news sources.

If you haven't examined the picture yet, it's time.

Notice the trend that has left-leaning agenda journalism exhibiting higher level of trust than (mainstream and left-leaning) news organizations like NPR and the New York Times?  FactCheck is probably the only independent in the group that deserves its high rating.

NewsTrust uses its membership as a giant review panel to rate news stories.  The members evidently pick the stories as they please.

Here's a sample review of a PolitiFact story I panned last year:

PolitiFact shows in this story how the Death Panel lie started and how it spread like wildfire via all forms of media; how it became part of the congressional record on 40 occassions.

Reviewers have the option of providing material that contradicts the finding of a story.  The reviewer in this case found nothing so objectionable about the story and the information she fed the system resulted in a 4.1 rating for the story.

Survey says:  NewsTrust further institutionalizes institutional media bias.  The journalists involved in the ratings will carry, as usual, their leftward tilt and that tilt is probably magnified by a membership pool with an even more pronounced port list.

It's a good idea, but badly flawed in its execution.

Update: The standard of accuracy at the St. Petersburg Times (Updated x2)

Three, three, three irons in the fire.

1)  The St. Petersburg Times still apparently doesn't care that Neal Boortz did not compare Elena Kagan to Shrek.  They've kept that untrue factoid in the text of a Robyn Blumner editorial column.

2)  The Times also does not care that their report(s) that Charlie Crist received $7.4 million in public campaign financing are false.  The figure remains esconced in a Times news report as well as in a subsequent editorial.

3)  The Times' fact checking project, PolitiFact, published a national story about Sen. Jim DeMint that included yet another false claim.  According to that story DeMint was incorrect that the percentage of all bills passed via unanimous consent was 94 percent.  PolitiFact absurdly claimed that the real figure was 27.9 percent.  PolitiFact has yet to address the problem.


I've contacted the Times' corrections department about the first two instances.

A PolitiFact FaceBook fan, Scott Tippetts, reported that he sent PolitiFact a note pointing out the problem with its percentage figures.

(btw, I have sent Truth-O-Meter a mroe (sic) detailed email explaining the errors in their logic & calculation.)

Thursday at 6:55pm
--Scott Tippetts.

Today I sent a message directly to the story's author, thinking that if the author came to believe that the story contained false information then their investment in the story would motivate an effort to fix it.

And nothing happens.

We'll keep watching.

Our standard at the St. Petersburg Times is simple: to get things right the first time. This being a human endeavor, we sometimes fall short.

When this happens in the news report, our policy is to correct factual errors, promptly and prominently. Readers who spot factual errors are encouraged to contact the news department, by telephone, letter or e-mail, so that we can address the mistake.

Our contact numbers are in the directory. Readers may also call our main City Desk at (727) 893-8215 between 8 a.m. and 11 p.m., or send an e-mail to corrections@sptimes.com.
(St. Petersburg Times, bold emphasis in the original)

It's getting rather difficult to believe.

Your question about the Times' standards of accuracy and their application has been forwarded to me. Those standards do indeed apply to the entire paper. With respect to editorials and opinion columns, readers often have differences with the opinions expressed in those pieces. As I'm sure you understand, those are differences of opinions and not questions of fact.
(e-mail from Tim Nickens, the Times' editor of editorials)

 Update:

Following the course I chose in the third instance, I contacted the author of the news report containing the second error.  Steve Bousquet (responding promptly to my message) has affirmed that he will follow up with an editor with respect to publishing a correction.  Props to Steve Bousquet.

Update 2 (Nov. 1, 2011):

Much has happened, at least from my end of things, without an update.  To recap the gap:

PolitiFact did fix the badly wrong 27.9 percent figure in the DeMint fact check (though the fact check continues to contain egregious flaws).  So one of these three irons came out of the fire.

As for the inaccurate reporting on public campaign finance in Florida, nothing happened subsequent to Bousquet apparently acknowledging the problem.  I followed up by contacting the St. Petersburg Times' president, Paul Tash, with similarly invisible results.  Today, I phoned the Times' directly.  I briefly explained the problem and the friendly phone person said my inquiry fell in editor Jim Booth's department.  But Mr. Booth was out and would not return until 11 a.m.  The phone person asked for my phone number so that Mr. Booth could phone me and I gave it.

It's 3:04 p.m. as I type this, and I have received no call.

At about 11:30 a.m. I also sent Mr. Booth the links he would need to easily find the information at the Florida Division of Elections website along with the two stories containing the inaccurate numbers.

And the inaccurate information remains in both stories.  Hopefully the next update will contain better news.

The Pulitzer's high standards (Updated)

I've been skeptical of the Pulitzer award given to The St. Petersburg Times for its fact-check operation, PolitiFact. I've found so many errors of fact and lapses of the objective standard in PolitiFact entries that I have trouble linking PolitiFact to the notion of high journalistic standards.

Happily, the Pulitzer site now lists the stories for which the award was given. And I intend to review the work to see if I detect the same high standards that the Pulitzer committee apparently detected.

As a first step in that process, I tried to find some statement of standards at the Pulitzer Web site. My search met with no initial success, so I used the provided contact link to inquire about the standards applied by the Pulitzer committee.

I suspect that if the standards were anything clear-cut, then they would be clearly listed and widely available on the Web. And I think we have a right to wonder whether standards that cannot be clearly expressed deserve the designation "high standards."

I'll be delighted if the Pulitzer folks defer to the Society of Professional Journalists and its journalistic code of ethics. Those standards are specific and detailed.


Update:

I received a very prompt response to my e-mail inquiry. The respondent forwarded the response of Pulitzer Prize administrator Sig Gissler: "Thanks for the inquiry. In large measure, the standards are expressed in the kind of work we honor. However, if you examine the definition of categories and the Q&A that we offer on preparing an entry, there is further indication of standards."

The first portion is perhaps a bit unfortunate, hinting as it does at a logical circularity. Gissler's intent, however, was certainly to say that definite standards were applied and naturally expressed in the outcomes if we allow for competent judging. Regardless, that portion of the answer was not of much use to one like me interested in the relationship of the standard to award-winning work.

The latter portion of Gissler's response was useful. I was directed to the "How to enter" page, where I would find additional descriptions of standards. From there, I zeroed in on a .pdf file under the hotlink "Journalism Guidelines."

Entries for journalism awards must be based on material coming from a text-based United States newspaper or news organization that publishes—in print or online—at least weekly during the calendar year; that is primarily dedicated to original news reporting and coverage of ongoing stories; and that adheres to the highest journalistic principles.

That's included for the sake of completeness. Obviously it is still lacking in specifics at this stage.

Any significant challenge to the honesty, accuracy or fairness of an entry, such as published letters, corrections, retractions, as well as responses by the newspaper, should be included in the submission.

The above strongly implies that dishonesty, inaccuracy or unfairness might disqualify an entry. But I find it interesting that only published letters are mentioned. It seems to give newspapers the option of covering up problems. Just don't print the letter of protest. Problem solved.

And there really isn't too much more than that. Some categories place a premium on creativity. Others emphasize clarity.

But this is far better than nothing. I have no less than three categories on which to reasonably judge the PolitiFact material.