This morning I watched MSNBC's Chuck Todd's "The Daily Rundown" and what appears to be its regular weekly feature PolitiFact (PF) fact-checks with Bill Adair. Adair announced the change from Barely True to Mostly False, something I had recommended in May....and because of the polling of PolitiFact followers on Facebook and elsewhere.
The end of the feature was mentioning the "closing" score of the PolitiFact Truth Index, which brings me to my own announcement: although I like my method better, it probably would behoove me to change my scoring to that of the PF Truth Index, and retiring the Politi-Score, which I've already done to some extent. I'm getting used to the "Half True as zero baseline" approach. I'm not sure about treating the Truth Index as some sort of "Dow Jones Industrial Average" but that was something I was sort of doing as well earlier in the year, when I noted following the 2010 elections that the Politi-Score fell during that time, indicating the trend for false political rhetoric to increase during a campaign. I think Adair felt it needed to be more "ongoing" especially if it was being put into a mobile app.
So, in the days to follow, the Politi-Score explanation will be modified (on the "About This Blog" page) and the tag for those posts featuring the Politi-Score will be changed to "Truth Index." Since the Politi-Score is basically very similar in structure, only "half" (it begins at 100 for True, like the Truth Index, but has 25-point increments between rulings, whereas the Truth Index has 50-point increments), I'm going to rate it Mostly False, since this is pretty much the only "element of truth" that the Politi-Score contains in relation to the Truth Index. This was not meant to be a factual statement! Other than that, the Politi-Score is now offically retired.
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