Lil White Lies Extra: PFB prefers the GOP

PolitiFact Bias (PFB) has recently posted on a comparison of rulings which it insists are very much alike, but totally inconsistent when it comes to the Truth-o-Meter grade, having to do with congressional pay raises. Its recent post states the supposed contrast:

If the PolitiFact Ohio rating is accurate [a False ruling on a Republican] then the PolitiFact Florida rating is wrong [a True ruling for a Democrat]. And if the PolitiFact Florida rating is accurate then the PolitiFact Ohio rating is wrong.

So let's take a look at these rulings, plus a few others, to see if PolitiFact, according to PFB, is really being (unfairly) inconsistent. It turns out, PolitiFact Bias may have selected the wrong rulings to compare....which isn't too unusual.

 

The difference is the specificity.

The PolitiFact Ohio "False" rating is on senatorial candidate Josh Mandel, who said that his opponent, Senator Sherrod Brown, "voted six times to raise own pay." Now, it needs to be mentioned that the Brown campaign responded to Mandel's accusation by stating that it was just the opposite, that Brown had instead voted against pay increases seven times...which turned out not to be quite the case, either, when PolitiFact Ohio checked it out. These votes, from 1997 through 2012, were part of "broad pieces of legislation...[not] focused purely on the pay raise issue."

 

The PolitiFact Florida "True" for the Florida Democratic Party (FDC) said that 2010 governor candidate Bill McCollum voted for a pay increase four times, by the specific amount of $51,000, as well as having a $75,000 pension. This was based on an ethics law passed in 1989, which put automatic pay raises into place, as well as the amount of the raise received at the time as specified in the ad ( actually $55,000) along with the congressional pension. All following raises were automatic unless freezes were put into the "broad pieces of legislation" mentioned above--and if the broader bill was voted against, it was deemed voting "for" a pay raise.

PolitiFact Detractors: WatchDog? More Like Watch-Mutt!

The latest in PolitiFact detracting, in this case  PolitiFact Ohio detracting, comes from something called Watchdog.Org which is part of “The Franklin Center for Government and Public Integrity.” Of course, my conservative counterpart starts out his post with the Franklin Center’s honorable-sounding name as the sentence subject to give his post some false stature even though the Watchdog.Org website includes this disclaimer:

The Franklin Center is not responsible for the information that appears on the watchdog sites. The organization serves as a capacity builder and networking agent for independent, state-based journalists and organizations…”

Most of the PolitiFact-is-opinion-parading-as-fact series they’ve done, by two “journalists” Jon Cassidy and Will Swaim, consist of some very narrow interpretations of the ruling along with a lot of condescension toward PolitiFact….about adding numbers, understanding economics, finance, etc., as if the authors were some sort of experts themselves, for which there was pretty scant evidence. Usually only one link, to the PolitiFact ruling, was included in their “article.”

PolitiFact Bias, however, takes no notice of the excessive snark (their own name for it) and does their usual cheer leading routine: “Jon Cassidy blasts PolitiFact Ohio….” in one and “absolutely clobbers” them in another. I guess snark is okay by writers for the “Franklin Center for Government and Public Integrity” when talking about PolitiFact, but a slight implication of it from PolitiFact is a seering indictment of bias.

In some of them, Swaim or Cassidy argue the difference between True and Mostly True. Now, to find something categorically false, or to argue the degree of falsity, is one thing, but the True to Mostly True or vice versa is sort of like arguing which horse is the best horse in the glue factory. I’m only going to cover a few of their criticisms here, but will include links to all of them. I liken some of the writing to my own: I consider myself an amateur at “journalism” because I have no education or training in it. In other words, Cassidy and Swaim aren’t very professional….well maybe professional hacks, you never know. They all start with the identical copy and paste intro:

PolitiFact Ohio practices opinion journalism under the guise of fact-checking. They often get things wrong — particularly, we’ve noticed, in their coverage of U.S. senate candidates Sherrod Brown (Democrat) and Josh Mandel (Republican). So we bring you PolitiFact or Fiction, a semi-regular review of pronouncements issued by PolitiFact Ohio, a blog run by staff at the Cleveland Plain Dealer and supported by Politifact.com.

They hit the ground running with their penchant for snark in the very first critique by Jon Cassidy, comparing two statements related to the same subject by Josh Mandel, a Republican candidate (State of Ohio Treasurer) running against Democrat Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown, with “Does anyone at Cleveland Plain Dealer understand finance?”   It's in the flimsyTrue-or-Mostly-True venue first mentioned.

Tchotchkes: Mildly Relevant News on PF Ohio

Sidebar: Liberal Proof of PolitiFact (Liberal) Bias

This started out as a “Lil White Lies” follow-up post, but actually, I’m not picking on Grading PolitiFact here. I may even be giving the "enemy" some ammunition, but in this case, PolitiFact kind of deserves it.

When I spotted these two rulings, the question occurred to me why Tom Feran at PolitiFact Ohio AND Angie Drobnic-Holan at PolitiFact Florida would basically cover the same statement. Above are the banners at Pat Boone’s page on PolitiFact, and the "difference" is highlighted. They were published four days apart.

I also thought I may have confused the two because I recall mentioning PolitiFact Ohio’s Tom Feran in my Lil White Lies post—but I had removed the reference in my final review. Of course, my conservative counterpart at Sublime Bloviations wouldn’t have made that mistake because his critique preceded the publishing of PolitiFact Ohio’s ruling by a few days. If he had known, I think he might have done a review covering both.

If you read them, the emphasis in both is on the so-called rationing of the IPAB, while the “wasteful spending” is secondary. Writer Feran leads into his article on how the Pat Boone video via the anti-AARP 60 Plus Association has been advertised in the state of Ohio. But the pieces are pretty redundant; I’ve noted before where this has happened, sometimes very obvious, and sometimes with an easy topic.

But there’s one other interesting aspect of this, besides the perhaps unnecessary repeat of a Pants on Fire claim perpetuated by Republicans (to refute one of their known talking points); it’s the fact that I’ve noticed that Angie Drobnic Holan and Tom Feran have both had the distinction of being the most Democrat-favorable PolitiFact journalists (through computing and comparing the Republican versus Democrat Truth Index by PF writer). When I noticed Angie last year I called it “Angie’s List Left” although she has gotten more upright in that comparison. Tom Feran’s left list, however, tilts way over to port since the data I used encompassed a full year; Angie’s was three months’ worth.

But what makes matters worse as a matter of comparison is a PolitiFact ruling from earlier this year (above) done by Eric Stirgus of Georgia, which looks like a definite conflict with the two Pat Boone rulings:

Truth Index: PolitiFact 2011 "Very" Preliminary

PolitiFact National and  a few regional PolitiFact (PF) rulings are still trickling in during the last week of 2011.  Right now I'm sitting at a little over 1,900 rulings for the year 2011.  PolitiFact peaked with the gross number of rulings in the second quarter of 2011, hitting over 500, and I thought with New Jersey coming on board that the number would increase.  However, in the third quarter it dropped to 476 rulings, and this quarter, perhaps due to the holidays, it will be around 450 to 455.

Click to enlarge:  Number of Republican rulings has increased as a percentage throughout 2011.

What can be reported preliminarily at this point is that in 2011, Republicans dominated.  The percentage of Republican statements being ruled on increased as the year progressed, most likely due to covering the numerous Republican presidential debates.  This final quarter of 2011, for example, the number of Republican statements being rated for all PF regions including National exceeded Democrats by 70 percent (overall, it's less than 60%).  PolitiFact National brought the percentage up with a two-for-one emphasis on Republicans. Above is how it all looks on a bar chart: the number in parentheses is the total number of rulings for that quarter.  This is subject to additional review for any errors (see below) I may find as I scour it for any dupes and miscategorizations when I do the final charts.  But it's not expected to change greatly.  Below is how PF National looks:  almost 2/3 of their rulings were on Republicans in the fourth quarter.  Today they added two more Republican rulings not included here:  they were both on claims in Gingrich attack ads being done by a Romney super PAC.

Click to enlarge:  The run-up to the Republican primaries brought the PF National/New Hampshire
percentage of Republican rulings to over 66 percent in the 4th quarter of 2011.

In the meantime, I have to note I found a "dupe" on the part of PolitiFact.  I get the impression they have some sort of software for publishing their rulings, like a template where there are drop-downs for the subject, the sources, etc., as well as for "which" PolitiFact.  Because I found one somewhat "local" Ohio ruling by an Ohio writer which somehow ended up in both the PF Ohio....and PF Texas listings?  Oh well, it was just one out of 1,900-plus.  But I found it only because this quarter I have started recording the statement, which is what prompted me to discover it.  So I am wondering if there may be more. 

Josh Mandel is running for office in Ohio.  This "Half True" ruling was counted twice by PF (see link).

Here's where it's in its proper place.  How it ended up in Texas as well, I have NO idea.

Politi-Score: PF Ohio and the Truth Index

PolitiFact (PF) Ohio (Stephen Koff) recently did a sort of self-congratulatory one-year anniversary article on the Cleveland Plain Dealer’s foray into doing Truth-O-Meter rulings in partnership with PolitiFact. This was one of the first times I saw more “raw” numbers come out for Democrats and Republicans, as well as the defending of the selection of more Republican statements, Koff’s reason being the same as that I had stated previously: there’s just more Republicans in office since the elections of late 2010, especially in Ohio.

My numbers did not correlate precisely with PF Ohio because of how I had compiled them in 2010, which was by person/entity since the beginning of PF in 2007, not ruling by ruling to differentiate the state. I started doing it ruling by ruling in 2011. So, for example, I had seven more rulings for Dennis Kucinich and three more for Sherrod Brown, because PF National was doing rulings on them prior to PF Ohio’s existence. In addition, there were a few people and groups who, as I just noted in a previous post on light bulbs, do not have an affiliation indicated by PF, when they should. When PF doesn’t show an affiliation, I will do some research to determine one, and if the connection to one party is crystal clear, I will assign it as such.

So, I will just go with PF Ohio’s numbers. Here’s Democrats and Republicans, this time in the mobile app format with the Truth Index ("Score") calculated.

My conservative counterpart (Bryan White) just published an exchange he had with Robert Higgs, who appears to be the lead journalist for PF Ohio, and who responded to some of the commenters to the PF Ohio article. Higgs published this reply concerning PolitiFact bias, which he thereupon immediately published in his blog:

What I can tell you about PolitiFact Ohio is that in our first year we did 81 Truth-O-Meter rulings on statements from Democrats and 103 from Republicans (more on the GOP side principally because Kasich is governor and there's twice as many Republicans in power as Democrats).

The average grade for Democrats: Half True

The average grade for Republicans: Half True

Some say the Texas Rangers have a better team batting average than the Seattle Mariners.

What I can tell you about it is that right now both teams are in the American League.

The Seattle Mariners are batting roughly .250.

The Texas Rangers are batting roughly .250

Bryan White responded in a post through his blog the way I might have, except I would not have used the Rangers-Mariners analogy…I would have used the Truth Index, the actual measure, to show Higgs that there was a statistically significant variance even though they’re both “roughly Half True.”

Higgs isn't saying anything. The "average" when there are only six positions on the scale is a very rough approximation, just like rounding the Rangers' batting average down from .272 and the Mariners' battering average up from .226. Is a difference of .46 statistically significant? You betcha. It's huge.

Politi-Score: 1st Quarter 2011 By State

Well, in a previous post I noted how PolitiFact (PF) Ohio had the highest Politi-Score--the highest level of "truthiness"-- for Republicans, and exceeded the Democrats.  Looks like we've reversed course at PF Ohio this first quarter of 2011, in a big way.   

PF Ohio had a roughly equivalent number of rulings for current and former officials: 19 Democrats, and 22 Republicans.   In that regard not much can be gleaned from the huge variances in Oregon and Rhode Island.  Oregon had ten Democrat and only FOUR Republican rulings, while Rhode Island had nine Democrat rulings, and only TWO Republican.  But overall, the Republican rulings outnumbered the Democrats 3 to 2 (201/131).  In Florida, there were 7 Democrat rulings compared to 40 for Republicans.  In Texas the Republican rulings outnumbered Democrat by 2 to 1 (32/16).

But that's probably because there are many more Republican office holders in Texas and Florida.  In Florida, my winter residence, we have a new Republican governor (Scott), a new Republican Senator (Rubio) and the Republicans dominate the local and national congresses.  So you get what you get.

Politi-Score: More Red in Ohio

During the 2010 election cycle, a trend was noted concerning the PolitiFact (PF) State Truth-o-meter rulings: that the “redder” affiliated state newspapers (ones that, for example, endorsed more Republican candidates) tended toward rulings, when averaged out through the Politi-Score, to either be more balanced between the parties, or to even favor Republicans, especially when compared to PF National. So how did that work out now with ALL the rulings instead of two months’ worth?

Before starting, I should note that I will be changing my “About This Blog” page shortly to reflect I am going with what I call “Wide Measure” rulings only from now on. I do like the innateness of 100 points for True, 50 points for Half True and zero for False.

That being said, here are the Democrat and Republican Politi-Scores compared for all states, for “former and current office-holders” only, according to that measure.

The “50” for Half True is the first focus on this chart. The averages ranged below 50 (Half True), but only PolitiFacts National and Florida, who have some of the same writers, had scores above 50 for the Democrats. Since together they dominate over 3/4 of the rulings, it caused the “ALL” scoring in the last column to average to above 50, even though all other PF states scored 50 or under collectively (for both parties).

Politi-Score: "My Bad" Boehner

In my initial review of Eric Ostermeier’s article “Selection Bias? PolitiFact Rates Republican Statements as False at 3 Times the Rate of Democrats” I deduced that he had used PolitiFact National statistics only. As a matter of uniformity, this was probably the most “scientific” way to do it. But because his total number of 511 statements still seemed a little low, and he did not come out and say that this was PolitiFact National, I puzzled over how I could determine it.

Since Speaker of the House John Boehner is from Ohio, I thought I might manually confirm his rulings. Indeed, he had some rulings by PolitiFact National and some by PolitiFact Ohio, here’s how his count worked out for 2010 when he received 21 PolitiFact rulings:

Boehner 2010	PF National	PF Ohio	Total
True	6	4	10
Mostly True	2	0	2
Half True	1	2	3
Barely True	1	0	1
False	3	2	5
Pants on Fire	0	0	0
Total	13	8	21

So right there (in emphasis), as Ostermeier noted, six Trues, two Mostly Trues, and one Half True. Yes, Ostermeier had compiled Boehner’s numbers for PolitiFact National only.

The issue raised for me was the way I had gathered my data for my “2,788 Reasons” series of posts. I accomplished the task by going to the “Other People and Groups” page of the PolitiFact.com website, and linking to each person, and then copying the numbers from the “Statements by Ruling” list. But the issue was that the “Statements by Ruling” do not tell you which PolitiFact group the ruling was done by, and there are some overlaps. The other politico I checked was House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, since he is a representative from Virginia, and yes, he had one ruling done by PolitiFact Virginia.

Grading PolitiFact *Liberal*-Style: Tax Break Mistakes

When my conservative counterpart *grades* PolitiFact, he occasionally employs his own version of the “slippery slope” analogy, attempting to make it appear a logical explanation for why PolitiFact’s rulings are in error. According to him, if the slippery slope is reasonable in each step of the slope, that makes it a legitimate argument. As I later noted, there should additionally be proof conclusive that these steps are indeed occurring (which in the case of “death panels” was not evident, and so failed the full test of legitimacy).

For this particular ruling on a statement by Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown, the same slippery slope rationalization can be applied, and the “reasonableness” badge even more easily awarded. Using Bryan Whites’ own words:

One of the commonsense rules of charitable interpretation involves accepting a reasonable explanation from the person making the statement, at least to the point of granting the explanation the benefit of the doubt in a close contest of most plausible explanations.

Translated: Baffling with bullsh*t is perfectly reasonable! Whatever “plausible explanation” that’s buyable is acceptable. That’s how argument is done in Facebook commentary, so why not the same here.