Anchors A-Weigh: May the Politi-Farce be with You

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Add another PolitiFact Detractor to the growing list: a website called Anchors Rising featuring mainly two writers, Justin Katz and Monique Chartier, claiming a similar “liberal” selection bias, this time by Projo PolitiFact Rhode Island. While Weston Hicks calls it Politi-Hack Trackers at PolitiFact Texas, they call it Politi-Farce. But this one has a little more standing in that it not only seems on its face quite professional, lauds PolitiFact Bias as a “much needed site” but it includes commentary from one politico who has been (more than once) subjected to the PolitiFact Truthometer: Republican John Loughlin, “who ran an unsuccessful 2010 campaign for Congress in Rhode Island's 1st District.”

Politi-Farcer Chartier proudly displays the text of Loughlin’s seething commentary:

Politi-Fact has no credibility with me what so ever. On July 20, 2010, I was given a "pants-on-fire liar" rating for relaying the information given to me by Arizona law enforcement that those being human trafficked across the US / Mexico board are often force to carry narcotics as a price of passage. It is extremely difficult to prove this, however this is what I was told by law enforcement on the ground in Arizona (Governor Jan Brewer said the same thing). Subsequent to piece's publication it was reported in the same Providence Journal that 72 Guatemalans were gunned down by the cartels for refusing to carry the drugs. Then the Interior Minister of Mexico made a speech outlining that the human traffickers were being forced to carry drugs. I presented all of this exculpatory evidence to Politi-Fact and was told "well, we already covered that story so we don't want to go back and re-hash it." These low-lifes called me a liar and didn't have the guts to go back and correct their error. I can only conclude it was because Politi-Fact is agenda driven journalism at its very worst.

Chartier wrote with disdain that this indicated PolitiFact’s “ inability to correct a rating when indisputable evidence emerges that it was wrong.” In other words, he asserted he had refuting evidence…. which was anecdotal in character only. Chartier asserted PolitiFact’s ruling was wrong regardless, and said little else to explain why Loughlin’s comment made it true, or citing the information that supported Loughlin’s comments.

Yes, there are some people who come across the border as drug mules as a price of entry to the U.S., but not most by any stretch. Loughlin’s “evidence” did not support that “most of” or “all of” as noted in a response by none other than Bryan White, who bravely took Loughlin to task for his comments: (emphasis added)

I may be PolitiFact's most dogged critic. But PolitiFact has better branding than Loughlin nationally, so the typical person who reads his comments is going to write him off as a bitter sore loser. Given a more polished presentation (apologies, good Mr. Loughlin) and the hard evidence supporting his account (texts of e-mails, for example), his story could serve as a devastating example further undermining PolitiFact's credibility.

Here’s the crux of PolitiFact’s argument that Louglin’s statement that “carrying drugs is the price people have to pay to sneak into the U.S. from Mexico” merited a Pants on Fire ruling:

We then called Steven Cribby, spokesman for U.S. Customs and Border Protection, who pulled statistics for the Tucson sector, which covers 262 miles of Arizona border, from the New Mexico state line to Yuma, Arizona. It's also the biggest and busiest sector.

The 100 people (about 22 per month) picked up in Pinal County turns out to be a drop in the bucket. From Oct. 1, 2008 through Sept. 30, 2009, the border patrol apprehended 241,673 people (20,000 per month), Cribby said.

How many of the 241,673 cases involved drugs? Cribby said the Border Patrol logged 1,602 apprehensions in "drug-related events" for that period.

We did the math. That's less than 1 percent (0.66 percent) of all the apprehensions from that Border Patrol sector.”

The story of the 72 Guatemalans is an anecdotal, minute percentage of the 20,000 estimated to come across the border monthly; and I could find no quote or other passage in connection with the speech of Mexico’s Minister of the Interior, Jose Francisco Blake Mora, outlining “that the human traffickers were forced to carry drugs” in that this was a common occurrence, or, more likely, that more illegal immigrants were being subjected to it, which also means it is not “common.” If Mora said that, the question would arise where he would get his information that most of the illegal migrants are mules for drug traffickers, since government corruption (and just lack of any government) is so rampant in Mexico.

Of course, I have not gone through the “Helen Glover Show” tape to find exactly what Loughlin said, so I am also assuming that PolitiFact reported that part correctly.

But the anchor drops straight to the bottom here, because Katz and Chartier, and Loughlin actually think the anecdotal examples of people being drug mules exonerates him and makes the PF ruling True.

Arizona Governor Jan Brewer said the same thing as John Loughlin about illegal immigrants.

Katz and Chartier also tried to pass off a lie (which was corrected) that there was a “Truth Board” at Projo (PolitiFact Rhode Island) which made pre-determined rulings, and the reporter then goes out to find supporting evidence for that ruling, a sort of systematic method of confirmation bias. While I’ve speculated that PolitiFact may try to find an equal number of statements overall between Republicans and Democrats as well as have a rule of thumb as to the across the board spread of rulings (i.e., roughly 10 percent Pants on Fire, etc.), this one, if true, would in my view be adequate grounds to withdraw their Pullitzer Prize. While it doesn’t surprise me that a Conservative website would make such a misrepresentation, it not only smacks of paranoia,  it’s enough to lose as much credibility as Loughlin says he feels about PolitiFact.