Sidebar: Don't Take New Hampshire for Granite

As I started accumulating ruling statistics for the next quarterly review of the PolitiFact (PF) Truth Index, a new fact-checking management style appears to have emerged at PolitiFact with the addition of PolitiFact 2012 New Hampshire. It might be something called a “matrix” or “cross-functional” style of managing PolitiFact’s proliferating journalistic efforts (when I was working, we would be told this was a way to maximize efficiency, so I guess it can be applied to everything). 

PF New Hampshire is much more than just a PF "State".



It hasn't so far been its own local candidate fact-checker as the other PolitiFact state fact-checkers are, though that doesn't appear to be the intent for it. As stated in PolitiFact's initial press release:  "Reporters from NHPR and the newpapers are fact-checking the presidential candidates, political parties and other groups that make claims during the New Hampshire campaign."  For example, if you look at the PolitiFact website’s drop down menu under States, New Hampshire is not in the drop-down; it currently has its own drop-down at “2012 Presidential”. If you click to the New Hampshire page, there are not just rulings from PF New Hampshire and National, there are rulings from other states, for example, PF Texas has a ruling on the page for Rick Perry, and if you link to that, the PF New Hampshire logo is displayed. When you look at the subjects under “About This Statement” it always includes “New Hampshire 2012” even though it’s not really part of the topic being ruled on.

The other item of note on PF New Hampshire is its many, many writers, so far, I’ve counted nine.

1. Jake Berry
2. Maryalice Gill
3. Jeffrey Good
4. John Gregg
5. Josh Rogers
6. Jon Greenberg
7. Dan Gorenstein
8. Gregory Trotter
9. Kevin Landrigan 

So, what’s going on here? What does Bill Adair have up his sleeve? I recall he said in a recent interview that the polling he’s gotten from PolitiFact fans via e-mail, Facebook and Twitter indicate that what they’d really like is some sort of immediate feedback (like a pop-up factoid) as to the truth of a statement just uttered by a politico, which would be virtually impossible to do because of the investigation required. Maybe this is something along those lines for the 2012 presidential campaign, something that necessitates a lot of newly trained, energized, youthful and ambitious journalists to put a plethora of fact-checks out there for almost immediate review on the web.

And it certainly rebuts the arguments of my conservative counterpart who’s been betting on the sudden demise of the PolitiFact brand for quite a while. If anything this shows that PolitiFact is planning for expansion. It should keep us both busy, ha ha.

Of the 26 rulings I’ve added so far from PolitiFact New Hampshire, 73% of them cover Republicans, mostly statements of the presidential candidates made at the several debates they’ve had so far. Most of the Democrat fact-checks (I’ve counted seven so far) have been the New Hampshire Democratic Party, however, which is the only thing that relates to New Hampshire as far as rulings. And by the way, through around September 21, the Truth Index for Republicans is a negative 13.16, and for the seven Democrat rulings we are at a perfect zero. Overall it’s a negative 9.62.

I will not be posting much (if at all) until early October, because my permanent move to Florida will be keeping me extremely busy. I will be concentrating on compiling the third quarter PolitiFact ruling data as I have time. Over and out (for now).

Postscript:  On the other hand, there's another question since the New Hampshire banner has "2012" displayed:  What happens on January 1, 2013?  Will it be changed to "2014"?  Or is New Hampshire trying PF on for size?  Ah, well, the makings of another post.