Applying the Truth Index to The Fact Checker

Glenn Kessler’s The Fact Checker in the Washington Post (WaPo) has some marked similarities to PolitiFact’s Truth-o-Meter, and its rankings of “truthiness” can be associated as follows: 

• WaPo Gepetto Checkmark: True = PolitiFact True: The statement is accurate and there’s nothing significant missing.
• WaPo ONE Pinnochio: Some shading of the facts. Selective telling of the truth. Some omissions and exaggerations, but no outright falsehoods.  =  PolitiFact Mostly True: The statement is accurate but needs clarification or additional information. 

• WaPo Withholding Judgment/Verdict Pending or True but False = PolitiFact Half True: The statement is partially accurate but leaves out important details or takes things out of context. 

• WaPo TWO Pinocchios: Significant omissions and/or exaggerations: Some factual error may be involved but not necessarily =  PolitiFact Mostly False: The statement contains an element of truth but ignores critical facts that would give a different impression. 

• WaPo THREE Pinocchios: Significant factual error and/or obvious contradictions =  PolitiFact False: The statement is not accurate.

• WaPo FOUR Pinnochios: Whoppers!  =  PolitiFact Pants on Fire: Not just inaccurate, but makes a ridiculous claim.

The stickler for me in making these “equivalencies” was WaPo’s Withholding Judgment/Verdict Pending or True but False category. PolitiFact really has no such thing (maybe it should?). But it needed to count for something, and because PolitiFact, in its Truth Index, assigns a zero score to Half True, this seemed like the right place for it to be. Because it’s neither negative nor positive—therefore it’s a zero.

So, like PolitiFact, can I take the Fact Checker’s rankings and quantify them likewise into a WaPo Truth Index? You betcha! Although we have far fewer rulings at the Fact Checker that have only been available since March of this year. There’s also rulings where the Fact Checker and PolitiFact have overlapped (evaluated the same statements), which will be covered later.  Here's the Truth Index applied to the approximately 100 Fact Checker rulings, compared to PolitiFact for the first half of 2011, for Democrats and Republicans:

Click on graphic to enlarge for closer viewing

The Fact Checkers’ Truth Index scores are much worse (more negative) than PolitiFact’s because Glenn Kessler, the writer, admits to very rarely awarding a “Gepetto Checkmark”, his designation for “True.” In fact, he has only rewarded two of them in 2011 (both to Republicans!). This serves to make the Truth Index slide more greatly to the downside. What’s interesting, however, is the correlation of the PolitiFact Truth Index and the Fact Checker in favoring Democrats, with a spread of 22 points for PolitiFact and 21 points for the Fact Checker. I guess my conservative counterpart now has one more journalist to accuse of liberal bias.

It should be mentioned that The Fact Checker often does multiple claims on an individual with one ruling for all claims; it also might do two rulings in one where two individuals made like statements. For example, eight claims on Michele Bachmann were examined on June 28 for which she got a combined “Two Pinnochios”. I’ve decided to count these as eight rulings instead of just one, as it serves to mitigate the overall average.

And speaking of Michele Bachmann, she will be the Number 1 personality for whom I will be doing a comprehensive review of FOUR fact-checking sites’ rulings on her since January. I’ve found a lot of agreement and a few potential conflicts, and there may be enough to do several good posts on various aspects of those rulings. Stay tuned.