In 2011 I came across the website of Steve’s Quibbling Potatoes, and I have to admit he gave me some good ideas about further finessing my database of PolitiFact (PF) rulings. So Steve, if you’re reading this, I’m sorry I stole them! But you haven’t done anything on PF stats since July! In the last quarter of 2011, I started keeping an ongoing track (the way Steve does) of what he called the “occupation” of the statement-makers. Instead of just office holders, non-office holders, groups and media, he further defined it in terms of party boosters, advocacy groups, activists, etc. He also looked at state and local politics separately from “national” politics in Truth Index terms, to see if there was any difference in the averages and any insights could be gained.
As the 2012 presidential election approaches, another “group” is starting to be fact-checked that wasn’t part of Steve’s categorization, that he may have included under party boosters or advocacy groups if he had them. That’s the PAC – Political Action Committee – which I thought might be interesting to segregate out, especially in 2012.
Party boosters can best be described as groups whose purpose is to support the party. They’re pretty easy to distinguish because they have Republican or Democrat in their name. The 2011 PolitiFact Lie of the Year originated with the party booster DCCC – the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (well, it actually originated with the Wall Street Journal, but I won’t go there for now). It was fairly easy for me to go back through the previous rulings and find these, so I can show numbers on these for the entire year of 2011.
Advocacy groups and advocates (I’m including activist with advocates) are those whose sole purpose is (to advocate for) a “cause”—everything from “Critics of Florida Fluoridation” (public water supply in Florida) to the National Taxpayers’ Union (U.S. taxes). Of course, there may be some conflicts with the PAC’s, because PACs can support causes as well. Some of the groups are clearly non-profits or foundations and may run ads similarly to PAC and have PAC offshoots. I am trying to confine the PACs to those whose function is very clearly to garner contributions in order “to elect political candidates or to advance the outcome of a political issue or legislation.” It is difficult to tell sometimes; a patriotic-sounding name isn’t the only indicator. Usually, the PolitiFact ruling will note that it’s a PAC, but not always. I was able to include these for the entire year as well.
My last review of “occupation” categories was: office holders, non-office holders, groups, individuals and media. This time the non-office holders will be further delineated into party boosters, advocacy groups, PACs, media and whatever’s left that can’t be included in those four. That would be such things as websites, bloggers, yard signs, Facebook posts, and those ubiquitous chain e-mails.
 |
| Click to enlarge: Maybe PF has a soft spot in their heart for liberal media people? Dem and Repub party boosters lie about the same; advocacy groups and PACs favor the Republicans. |
The results this time yielded a surprise of sorts. So far, Democrats pretty consistently come out higher on the Truth Index than Republicans in almost all categories. In the case of advocacy groups and PACs, however, the Republican advocacy groups and PACs scored higher in overall “truthiness”, although collectively both parties averaged on the negative side of the Truth Index. The difference was pretty substantial with the advocacy groups, with the Republican Truth Index (-12) less than half that of the Democrats (-27.3). The Republican PACs were about two-thirds more truthful at a negative 17.6 compared the Democrats negative 29.2.
If I accidentally included advocacy groups with PACs or vice versa, in certain respects, it doesn’t make much difference. The number of errors would not amount to much, and the results would still favor the Republicans. But more than that, one of Steve’s charts, similar to mine done earlier in the year, I believe reflecting a database of about six months of data, reflects the same pattern with party boosters and advocacy groups.
 |
| Click to enlarge: At Steve's Quibbling Potatoes, party boosters and advocacy groups score similarly to mine. |
Next up, another surprise with the “locals.”
No comments:
Post a Comment