This is a *political* blog in which I am covering a number of subjects, most of which relate to the somewhat psychotic subject of U.S. politics (hence, Politi-Psychotics): current events and my commentary mostly political (Sidebar), a quantitative, statistical review (see below explanation) of the political fact-checking website PolitiFact (occasionally combined with other fact-checkers), using a "scoring system" called the Truth Index+, critiques of a blogger-and-Facebook-debater's critiques of PolitiFact, his own fact-checks and blog (Lil White Lies) along with criticisms of an offshoot of that site. Other PolitiFact Detractors are reviewed as well....and miscellaneous stuff, mostly humorous videos and cartoons (Tchotchkes).
This blog is a work in progress like anything else, and changes will be made along the way to continually improve it.
Please enjoy my blog!
How Truth Index is Calculated (and the Politi-Score)
| Ruling |
Means that Statement is
|
Equivalent Scoring in Truth Index+
|
| True |
Accurate
|
100.
|
| Mostly True |
Accurate, but requires clarification.
| 80. |
| Half True |
Partially accurate
|
60
|
| Mostly False |
An element of truth but ignores critical info
|
40
|
| False |
Not accurate
|
20.
|
| Pants on Fire! |
Not accurate and absurd
|
0
|
Example: Politician Joe Sixpack made two (2) statements and PolitiFact found one True and one False:
So, for two statements, one is True which = 100, one is False which = 20. 100+ 20= 120 divided by 2 (rulings) equals 60, which is the Truth Index for Half True. Therefore Joe Sixpack averages about "Half True" . Of course, Half True doesn't tell you much if Joe Sixpack has had only two rulings. In fact, about 60 percent of the individuals/groups rated have not had more than a single statement ruled on by PolitiFact. Due to this, most of my analyses is of the population, say, of Democrats, Republicans, the predominant ruling topics or a PolitiFact state.
It should be noted that before PolitiFact instituted the Truth Index in July, 2011, I had my own method of scoring the PolitiFact rulings called the Politi-Score using a narrower grading range. The Politi-Score has been re-invented as a "global" or multi-factchecker measure of the Truth Index (using the Truth Index methodology). The rankings used by the Washington Post's Fact Checker and the Minnesota Public Radio PoliGraph (for those rulings related to Minnesotans) have been incorporated into the Politi-Score accompanied by findings on statements by FactCheck.org. If other fact checking websites appear on line, I will try to figure them into the number as well using the Truth Index yardstick. This is a much more complicated measure, because conflicts between rulings do appear which I will attempt to reconcile, unless they just can't be...which should prove to be interesting.
