One Way PolitiFact Contends with "Selection Bias"

Coming from that exciting (ha ha ha) world of accounting, the audit or financial internal control function served to police those who kept the books, from committing fraud or gross accounting malpractice.  There were certain procedures that had to put into place:  one was not to let one person control too much of the process, and to transfer employees between jobs frequently--even to compel them to go on vacation because often when the employee was away, such fraud or malpractice would be discovered.

 

This analogy is of course not about "fraud" in relation to PolitiFact, but about how a journalist who in the same way might write all fact-checks for one person (on one topic) might encourage the potential for the selection bias that is so often cited by its many critics.  And in the course of my recording over 6,500 PolitiFact rulings I noticed a pattern in assignment of the fact-checks in that no one writer dominated covering any one person or subject.  I have previously posted that writer Lou Jacobson appeared to be the "economics" guy, but economics has a wide umbrella covering many subject areas, such as jobs, taxes and the federal budget, even healthcare.  For example, a selection of the 13 consecutive rulings on Obama under the subject of taxes, out of 121 total rulings on Obama in 2012, shows this alternating pattern of ruling assignment quite clearly:

Click to enlarge:  Note column for writers. 

Even in the PolitiFact states, alternating topics and who was assigned the fact-check seemed to be the norm.  Here's an example from the  fact-checks by PolitiFact Wisconsin of its most frequently checked person Governor Scott Walker, on one of its most frequently checked topics, the state budget:

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On occasion where there was a speech or television interview with a lot of statements to check, we might see a concentration of fact-checks by one writer, sometimes as many as five, but this was rare.  Eventually another writer would take the reins.  After the election in some of the states, it appeared that a single writer took over until the new year; then it was back to alternating.

Of course, I can't say that this resolves the problem of selection bias.  The type of bias that they're being accused of having--which involves a liberal partisanship--would still be evident regardless of how and to whom a fact-check is assigned, if it could be proved.  But I would think it would be somewhat ameloriated through multiple journalists covering multiple topics, because not everyone has the same bias going in the same direction.

Truth Index+: The Top Ten PolitiFact Writers

There are ten PolitiFact (PF) writers who have produced just about half of PolitiFact's rulings, from its beginnings in 2007 up until I ended my compilation on Election Eve, 2012.  Another roughly 160 writers composed the rest of them, many serving multiple functions of writer, researcher and editor.  There were 47 writers who wrote just one to two rulings each.

 

The highest producer by far is Lou Jacobson, whose 676 fact-checks (some done in association with other writers at PolitiFact) make up a bit over 10% of PolitiFact's total output.  Number 2 is Angie Drobnic Holan, now the Editor at PolitiFact Florida, at 571.

 

Below is the Truth Index+  for the Top Ten, with scores for Republican versus Democrat.  The best way to look at these averages in terms of "bias" or "lean" would be the percent variance in the Truth Index+ between party for each writer.  Lou Jacobson, Angie Drobnic Holan, Robert Farley and PF Georgia's Willoughby Mariano have about a 22% variance leaning toward the Democrats, only to be exceeded by Number One C. Eugene Emery of PolitiFact Rhode Island, who has a whopping 38% Democrat lean.   Tom Kertscher at PolitiFact Wisconsin swings 22% in the opposite direction; the remainder go from 3% in favor of the Republicans to around 10% in favor of the Democrats.

 

Click to enlarge:  NA in parentheses = PF National; then number of rulings written.

So, what can we learn from the Truth Index+ for each writer?  I decided to take a closer look at the top four writers and an "outlier" in terms of some of the items I had keyed in:  party, titles, people, subjects.

 

Lou Jacobson, for example, was No. 5 in "lean" variance as noted above, although other than Emery he was in a virtual tie with four others.  But he had a few features in his 676 rulings that stood out:  he is definitely "the economics guy" on the PolitiFact team.   The subject of about 40% of his rulings was a fiscal one: economy, federal budget, stimulus, taxes etc..  This was a far larger percentage than any other writer.  Healthcare was the subject of 25% of his rulings.    In terms of "occupation" his being on PolitiFact National's team meant that about 30% of his rulings were on the president and vice president and the presidential/vice presidential candidates (in 2008 and 2012).

 

A check on names revealed a notable person who seems one of Jacobson's "fact-check favorites"--Michele Bachmann.  He did almost a third (17) of her 54 rulings, and gave her 5 of her 12 Pants on Fire awards, as well as five Falses (in other words, when a claim was found False for Bachmann, Jacobson determined it was Pants on Fire half of the time.)  In comparison, Angie Drobnic Holan only gave Bachmann one Pants on Fire out of five rulings found False.

Truth Index+ by PolitiFact National and States

The state by state Truth Index+ has held pretty consistently since I first started crunching the data last year (even using the PolitiFact calculation).  Now I can present it (with a great deal more accuracy) for all rulings since 2007 through the eve of the 2012 general election on November 6.

 

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That trend holds overall with one exception: that the Truth Index+ for Democrats exceeds that of Republicans.  Overall the variance is 15.9%.  To express it appropriately, the statements selected for Democrats by PolitiFact National as well as all state PolitiFacts have been on average rated about 16% higher in terms of more True/Mostly True/Half True(s) and fewer Mostly Falses/False/Pants on Fire(s) on PolitiFact's Truth-o-Meter.  Also, if you designate the Pants on Fire as equivalent to False instead of rating it lower (that is, remove the effect on the Truth Index score of Pants on Fire), this variance decreases to 13.9%.

 

At the state level, the Truth Index+ variance between Republicans and Democrats ranges from a nearly dead even 1.4% at PolitiFact Virginia, to 27.7% at PolitiFact Tennessee, although there it may be an anomaly due to the fact it had the lowest number of rulings measured (73 total) as the newest PolitiFact state franchise.  And the exception is PolitiFact Wisconsin at a "negative" 7.2%, that is, their Truth Index+ is the only one favoring the Republicans.

 

The anti-PolitiFact propaganda website PolitiFact Bias (PFB) recently posted its 2012 Pants on Fire factor (how much "more" it claims Pants on Fire are assigned to Republicans) by PolitiFact state.   And it has discovered via the results it shows, as I've reported before, some of the states actually assign more Pants on Fire to Democrats.

 

In its original research paper, we are told that the factor is adjusted for chain e-mail and "intra party" claims.   Because of the primaries this year, there were a lot of such "intra party claims", and due to that, although I go in the general direction of PFB's calculations of the factor, I was not able to match it.

Grading PolitiFact *Liberal*-Style: Land of Linkin'

“Five hundred billion” seems to be a heavily used number these days, from a national perspective. It’s often, often used by Republicans to describe the Medicare cuts from the Affordable Care Act (although ironically that’s what Paul Ryan’s imaginary budgets call for as well). But when used at a “state”or local level, it’s difficult to surmise what it may be describing, because almost no state budgetary line item would approach 500 billion, except for maybe legacy costs for state workers in California (actuarially-determined liabilities for retirement benefits ). So when Governor Pat Quinn of Illinois used this number to describe a proposed budget increase in property taxes by Governor Scott Walker in Wisconsin in a PolitiFact fact-check, it was pretty obvious that it was a typo, that he meant $500 million.

So after admitting such, PolitiFact Wisconsin’s Dave Umhoefer then determines it’s more like $350 MILLION (deduced from $483 million as sourced from the Quinn campaign itself when Umhoefer inquired) , although the actual number later turned out to be much less. So $350 million is 70% of $500 million…not a Mostly True, but a Half True or maybe a Mostly False.

But he gives Quinn a Pants on Fire….why?

Quinn said his Wisconsin counterpart had increased property taxes nearly $500 billion. That was explained as an old-fashioned typo. But even then, the $500 million is way off.

When Walker signed the budget in June 2011, property taxes were estimated to go up $350 million under the most common accounting. That estimate held until the April 16, 2012 report -- and it seems likely Quinn’s email was prepared before Walker’s announcement changed the game.

But he didn’t correct the million/billion typo in a timely way, and is still using the equally wrong $500 million claim. We think that’s ridiculous.

For the few days following the statement made by Quinn, April 18-19, Umhoefer cites/ links three sources which refer to the $500 million/billion. The first one, the Rockford Register Star, was almost published immediately after, on April 17, The second link, NBC-5 Chicago, in a blog by Edward McClelland, was done April 18, fixes the billion typo, and refers to it correctly as a budget item: “Governor Walker’s budget calls for raising local property taxes in Wisconsin by nearly a half-billion dollars ($ 483.8 million).‬”

The last link is to a blogspot website like this one, a self-proclaimed progressive blog called "The Political Environment” by James Rowen, and it’s a copy/paste of the Quinn message, something one would expect from a liberal blog immediately following the statement.

But then Umhoefer cites several articles in June that do not correct the error: one is to the Democratic Party of Wisconsin, in a piece titled the “Top Ten Worst Items in Scott Walker’s Radical Budget”  and what appears to be another progressive blog written by a Democratic Wisconsin State Representative.

But both of these are not related to the statement as made by Quinn—they ostensibly get their information from the Democratic Party of Wisconsin. In otherwords, it’s not Quinn, the object of the fact-check, who’s “still using the equally wrong $500 million claim.” If Umhoefer had cited a later statement (in June) by Quinn, he would be right, but that’s not what he did. Or if one of these articles referred back to, or quoted Quinn’s statement, Umhoefer’s claim would ring true. OF COURSE the Democratic Party of Wisconsin is going to use the budgetary, much different than actual, $483 million figure as part of their political spin—but it doesn't appear that they got the number from the Governor of Illinois. Umhoefer put the blame on him with these June reports, however, to bridge the Truth-o-Meter gap over to Pantalones en Fuego.

If one doesn’t read the links, one would likely believe that Quinn continued using the number or that his $500 million (or close to it) was cited by others, but it wasn’t. And until Dave Umhoefer can cite a link that says he was, this is more like Mostly False, and it was Pants on Fire ridiculous to make it Pants on Fire.

A Case for PF Wisconsin Right Wing Bias

While some try as best they can to prove that PolitiFact National has a left wing bias, there are a number of good reasons why it most likely doesn’t exist at national level.

1. The selection bias allegation is assumed to be only a party-related bias, contrary to PolitiFact’s repeated claim that is a newsworthy bias, and that ALL PolitiFact National writers/researchers/editors are liberal (and have dispensed with journalistic training in objectivity), for which one of its most vocal critics has provided NO evidence except for his own opinions of an anecdotal review of its rulings,  tainted with his own admitted conservative bias.

2. That other fact checkers, such as FactCheck.Org and the Washington Post FactChecker, check many of the same claims and (about 99% of the time) make similar findings, so therefore, it would have to be proven they are liberally biased as well in reaching the same conclusions.

3. There appears to be no obvious agenda cited by the critics except the sweeping generalization of selecting only statements favorable to Democrats and not favorable to Republicans.

IN WISCONSIN, however, using the above three points, there’s a very compelling situation which makes a good case for Republican (or right-wing) selection bias: .

1. A limited number of writers (they could be biased—but again, there’s no evidence they are, but it seems it would be less possible where there are more than just a few writers, as at PolitiFact (PF) National).  As to the question "who checks the fact-checkers" PolitiFact Wisconsin Senior Editor Greg Borowski could only say "all of our sources are listed and linked.  So check away."  But is having sources listed sufficient?

2. No one else fact-checking same claims because they are local to Wisconsin. .

3. An obvious agenda (the recall election) reflected by a Pants on Fire on the Democrat contender for governor on the eve of the election, with no claims checked on the Republican, and a few days before, particularly June 1, claims reported rated much more positively for Republicans.

4. And I’ve already noted that Republican-leaning news organizations in the PolitiFact domain tend to have truth indexes which favor the Republicans more. The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, which sponsors PolitiFact Wisconsin, is a somewhat mixed publication in its endorsements: it endorsed Walker, but also endorsed Obama in 2008 and did not endorse either Bush or Kerry in 2004.

5. Individual Truth Index trends: Prior to the 3 month period before the June 5 Recall, Scott Walker’s Truth Index was a negative 43, while in that three month period it improved modestly to a negative 21. Tom Barrett’s Truth Index up until that three month period was a negative 9. In the three months prior to the Recall, it plummeted to a negative 62. Mind you, this was for only eight fact-checks.

Grading PolitiFact *Liberal*-Style: Skirting the Wage Gap



At PF Wisconsin wage disparity for doing the same job merits a False; elsewhere, not so.

This post is a combination Grading PolitiFact Review and Grading PolitiFact Liberal Style, because it's turned out to fit both. It focuses on four PolitiFact (PF) rulings on the same subject. Grading PolitiFact’s Bryan White wants them all to be False or Pants on Fire, while to me they're a tentative Half True. The statement is that women earn, on average, 77 cents (or 79 cents or 81 cents, depending on the ruling) for what a man makes…and the addition of “doing the same job” (except for one) which was what brought them down in their rating for the ruling. Four fact-checks on this were done this quarter by PolitiFacts National (a Mostly False for Obama) and Rhode Island (a Mostly False for Congressman David Cicilline) and for the less specific (but supposedly “correct”) statement from senate candidate Tim Caine that it’s not for the same job, which merited a Mostly True from PolitiFact Virginia.

The fourth was from PolitiFact Wisconsin: it was women on average earned 81 cents on the dollar for the same job coming from  Democratic gubernatorial candidate Kathleen Falk, for which she received a False.  So White got his False on one of the statements; however, the PolitiFact Wisconsin review committed the same type of error he lamented in determining the real wage differential among all the occupations, because (according to most of the writers) it couldn’t really be done.

Looking at this chart (see below) from Wikipedia, I don’t know how one couldn’t conclude that women earn less than men. Maybe the gap is closer for the same work in certain categories, but there’s still a gap. Women earn less in almost every occupation ( only more in 4 out of 111, according to PolitiFact Wisconsin). But since we know women generally earn less overall, that gender bias exists (and studies show we’re not sure why) and it’s difficult to find evidence to show that women earn less for the same work across the board, the Mostly Falses (and the False) should have been more like inconclusive Half Trues.

Click to enlarge:  Women's median usual weekly earnings as percentage of men's, for full-time workers, by industry, 2009.

The ruling on Tim Caine of Mostly True where he didn’t add the “for the same job” came with the subtitle “There are many ways to look at pay gap.” This should have been how the “Mostly False” finders should have looked at this to conclude a Half True. Indeed there are many ways to look at it, but there’s still a gap.

Grading PolitiFact *Liberal*-Style: Silence is Golden like Fine Wisconsin Cheddar

Most of the PolitiFact rulings reviewed for the purposes of Grading PolitiFact (PF) Liberal Style are not that far off on how PolitiFact actually ruled on them; they are usually argued a notch or two apart from the Truth-o-Meter ranking (unfavorably to Liberals). Rarely do I come across rulings that are way off the mark. And rarely do I encounter a ruling where it appears the “rulee” is being penalized by several Truth-o-Meter grades.

When I looked at this ruling in PolitiFact’s banner listing, on the State Democrat Party of Wisconsin who said (here is the youtube video of one of the times it made this claim, graphically depicted below)  that they had collected “over 1 million” signatures for the Governor Scott Walker recall, and the by-line under the “False” Truth-o-Meter of “Short by 70,000,” I recoiled as my brain computed the percentage, and I immediately went to a Politi-Psy post on 13 PolitiFact rulings from the first quarter of 2011 where I was attempting to ascertain just how far off statements fact-checked with “numbers” could be to qualify for a Mostly True. Mostly True because, as I recalled, the range to be “off”  was from 7 to as much as 15%. And yes, my Mostly True review indicated 7% off qualified for Mostly True. So here was one, I thought, that should be closer to the Mostly True side. Seventy Thousand by itself looks like a big number, but everything is relative--70,000 is 7 percent of 1 million. Seven percent off. So…why were they given a False?

According to PolitiFact Wisconsin’s Tom Kertscher:

On March 12, 2012, the Government Accountability Board announced that 931,042 signatures had been submitted to recall Walker.

That’s a lot of signatures, but not 1 million.

On the day the GAB announced its official figure, a Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reporter asked state Democratic Party spokesman Graeme Zielinski in an email why there was a difference of nearly 69,000 between the number of signatures the party announced and the number counted by the elections board.

Zielinski replied he didn’t know, then backtracked, calling the "over 1 million" claim an estimate.

Said Zielinski: "Nobody knows how many signatures were submitted because of the sheer volume and the way the signatures were counted in the closing days. That's why we estimated our total."

But the number was never presented as an estimate….

The Democratic Party of Wisconsin claimed it submitted to the state elections board "over 1 million signatures" to recall Walker -- a claim that has been repeated and repeated. The board said just over 931,000 signatures were submitted
.
We rate the party’s statement False.

The ruling also noted that the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel had reviewed “ a random sampling of 500 Walker recall signatures found that 15 percent of them could not be verified.” But as noted, 15% falls at the outer bounds of Mostly True as well.

So PF says it wasn't presented as an estimate...why doesn't it say 1,000,321 then?

With the Mostly True post in hand with its links to the rulings I had reviewed with the 7-15% variance, I posted a comment at the PolitiFact Wisconsin Facebook page with those that could be easily compared to this ruling, in particular one on Florida Governor Rick Scott, who had stated that his budget had cut $2 billion in taxes, when in fact PolitiFact Florida could only find $1.7 billion, a 15% difference, and yet handed Rick Scott a Mostly True. I imagine that Scott repeated this "accomplishment" as well. So why did he not get a False like the State Democrat Party of Wisconsin, who were not as far off as Scott? As I noted in my Facebook comment, even if for the sake of argument there was a claim of 1.05 million signatures, which is OVER one million, the official count is still about 7% off what the State Democrat Party said it was.

Truth Index: 2011 PolitiFact Writers

There’s been some suggestions to me for improvements to the PolitiFact (PF) Truth Index on writers, and so I’ve tried to incorporate them here. One was, that my previous method of presenting the writers, by degree of variance between the Democrat and Republican Truth Index, didn’t mean a whole lot , and was in and of itself not a sufficient indicator that the writer might be biased. So I’ve decided to relate it to the state Truth Indexes for now.

It is true that it’s really hard to tell much from doing it the way I did it before. When I hear about “selection bias” the question becomes, to me, who does the selection, and how do they select. If a writer is not part of selecting the claim, in other words, if the claim is an assignment, this would certainly affect their variance. Some of the writers have very true leaning ratings (like Eric Stirgus of PF Georgia) while others have very false leaning ratings (like James Nelson of PF Wisconsin). A future post might look more closely at why Eric Stirgus appears to have so many more True ratings for both parties as compared to his PF Georgia compatriot Willoughby Mariano, especially if the Truth Index holds for both in 2012.  It was surmised that part of the reason PF Wisconsin's averages dropped was because of the labor unrest and recall efforts (and statements made associated with them) which were highly publicized in February.

The Truth Index here reflects all PolitiFact rulings for the year 2011 because that’s when I started keeping track of the writers.

Click to enlarge: These include ALL 2011 work of the writer (some also wrote for PF National as well as their state.)
Jacob Geiger's Democrat Truth Index calculated to zero.

Tom Feran of PF Ohio had the largest variance between Democrats and Republicans the last time, and retained this “gap” for 2011, at almost 60 points. He did about 60% more Republican rulings. Half of his Democrat rulings were done on Dennis Kucinich and Senator Sherrod Brown, who score very high on the individual Truth Index (Steve at Quibbling Potatoes also noted the affect on the Truth Index of Sherrod Brown) and might explain why his Democrat Truth Index was so high.

The Truth Indexes by writer are in the same order as the PF states featuring the major writers (those who have written the most rulings) for that state. This can be compared to the Truth Index by state in my previous post. For an even closer look, here’s a chart on the two Republican-favorable states Virginia and Wisconsin, to get a look at which writers affected the averages.

Click to enlarge:  Geiger's looks slightly different than overall chart because it only includes his PF Virginia work.

A few personnel changes should be noted here as well. It appears Robert Farley is no longer writing for PF National. I often see him as a writer over at FactCheck.Org., so he may have “jumped ship.” One of PF Virginia’s writers, Jacob Geiger, has not authored a ruling since July, 2011, and it appears he’s been replaced by Warren Fiske along with a rev up by Sean Gorman.

Next, individual politician ratings.

Grading PolitiFact *Liberal*-Style: Raise Malaise

Do an internet search on “will not take pay raise” and you will get a lot of results. One of my first search results on this phrase came right close to my home state of Michigan: it was something on the newly elected Michigan governor Rick Snyder:

Republican Gov. Rick Snyder today pledged to take a $1 salary this year as the state wrestles with a budget deficit.

The promise was reminiscent of former Flint Mayor Don Williamson, who also had pledged to take $1 a year when he took office.

Snyder is unveiling his proposed budget to the Legislature this morning.

He listed "shared sacrifice" as one of the budget's guiding principles, which is when he announced his salary plan.

Scott Walker, the incoming governor of Wisconsin in 2010, wasn’t a self-made millionaire like Snyder, so he didn’t have the financial resources to do the same. But does the automatic pay raise which went to his position when he started merit a “False” ruling from PolitiFact Wisconsin because he technically didn’t give it to himself?

The question should be is it true that there was a pay raise for the governor’s position—regardless of whether it’s a Democrat or Republican taking that position. The answer is yes, it’s true.

And can the governor through the majority Republican state congress, re-set his pay? YES. Can the governor return the $7,300 as a symbol that he is sharing the burden with state employees? YES. Can he give $7,300 to charity as a symbol of shared sacrifice? Yes. And, if he was a millionaire like Michigan Governor Rick Snyder, could he give himself a $1 annual salary until he brought Wisconsin out of its financial doldrums? I’m sure he could.

It’s not true that he rewarded himself, or that he “gave himself” a raise. But technically, he received a state-approved increase to his salary over the person who held it previously. I don’t know how that can be deemed a false. Even the ruling says: (emphasis added)

Sidebar: PolitiFact Rates Itself "Barely True"

Selecting the photo links to the "file" below is supposed to tell you Abele's political affiliation.

Update April 20, 2011: It was noted in this post that Chris Abele was running for office of Milwaukee County Executive in a special election held April 5.  He handily won to the dismay of Scott Walker.

In gathering the data for my Politi-Score analyses, I often have to figure out the true political affiliation of a candidate, non-candidate, blog, chain e-mail etc., because PolitiFact (PF), the source of my data, does not provide any, such as for one Chris Abele, for whom PolitiFact Wisconsin gives a “None” in describing him as a “philanthropist running for Milwaukee County Executive, a non-partisan office”:

There might not be any more rulings for Abele if he loses this special election.

But PF has actually provided its own ruling which clearly describes Abele’s political bent:

Politi-Score: Cheesy and Sleazy in Wisconsin

The numbers are in:  484 total PolitiFact (PF) rulings, nationally and state-wise, for the first three months of 2011.  They break down as follows, along with the Politi-Score, which averaged 44.4.

Beginning about the month of February, there were outcries, protests and much contentious back and forth between the Wisconsin state government and public employees and teachers in their capitol of Madison, as Governor Scott Walker sought to curtail collective bargaining.  And if the Politi-Score is any evidence, that back and forth just managed a "Barely True", far less than the general average. Yes, among the other states, PF Rhode Island may have a Politi-Score of 27, very close to that of PF Wisconsin, but they only had 22 rulings, not enough for a good measure (also, the Politi-Score for "current and former officials" at PF Rhode Island was a more average 42; not so for Wisconsin). Wisconsin had the second highest number of rulings to PolitiFact National for the first quarter.

This seems to support the theory that PolitiFact selects statements based on what's in the public eye at the moment, because the Wisconsin protests were certainly garnering a lot of attention.

The Politi-Score for PF Wisconsin was even lower, a paltry 19.3 for the month of February, when most of the protests had began.  But MOST interesting:  the Democrats' Politi-Score average in February was 17.9...but the Republicans were higher at a slightly more "truthful" 20.0.  More later.

Lil White Lies: More and Moore

During my working years, I had the unfortunate experience of going through recurring layoffs at my place of employment. Fortunately my salaried position spared me, but it was frightening to me nonetheless. Eventually I tried to take a positive view of them: when the papers would say the workforce was going to be reduced 20%, for example, I’d say to myself, well look at it this way, 80% are still working. This particular ruling by PolitiFact (PF) along with a blog post critical of it, reminds me, in a way, of that “80% positive.”

Michael Moore, self-avowed liberal activist and champion of the working class, recently went to Madison, Wisconsin to cheer on the Wisconsin public union members and teachers who protested their governor’s approach to solving a budget crisis by essentially taking away their collective bargaining rights (along with some other cuts), perhaps a move not so much to alleviate the budget but to eviscerate the unions.

PolitiFact Wisconsin pronounced as "True" the claim of Michael Moore, who stated quite plainly “Today just 400 Americans have the same wealth as half of all Americans combined.” My conservative counter part’s criticism is that Moore was not specific by saying “Today just 400 Americans have the same wealth as half of all Americans combined who are at the bottom of wealth distribution.” Somehow PolitiFact Wisconsin’s writers were at fault for not paying close enough attention to the specific wording of the claim. Not only that, they failed to consider the underlying message of how our country is “awash in wealth”…which, as he supposedly points out, appears to contradict Bill Adair’s claimed method for evaluating statements subject to PolitiFact’s Truth-o-meter.

Let’s first look at the chain of events in relation to this statement. Moore made the statement in Madison on March 5; he published his statement March 7 on his website. PolitiFact Wisconsin did not publish its ruling until March 10.

On March 5, the day of his speech in Madison, we get this description of it from a publication called the Daily Page:

…Moore talked about the nation's growing economic disparities, saying the total amount of wealth held by the nation's 400 richest individuals is equal to the assets of 155 million Americans on the other end of the spectrum.

Apparently this writer knew that Moore meant “the other end of the spectrum” economically when he talked about the 155 million people.

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).

Beyond Cows: Another Look at PolitiFact Wisconsin

Earlier I looked at allegations of so-called conservative bias at PolitiFact Wisconsin by one Jed Lounsbury of the website Uppity Wisconsin; now I’ve just happened upon a blogger here on Blogspot called “XbeyondX” who has posted some very detailed, cogent arguments almost worthy of somebody’s “Sith Blogroll” on several of PolitiFact Wisconsin’s rulings, including one that Jed Lounsbury expounded upon, again alleging conservative bias. Only this time, this blogger may really be onto something.

For “proof” of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel’s source of right-wing bias, “XbeyondX” provides some interesting information:

“…I am starting to wonder if we can add Milwaukee's media monopoly Journal Communications to the growing list of blatant conservative ideologues. Yes, this is the corporate parent of a radio station that interrupts its constant barrage of conservative talking points only for occasional sports.”

XbeyondX had just rated a PolitiFact (PF) Wisconsin fact check with a “Mostly True” on Wisconsin’s Republican Attorney General J. B. Van Hollen, who stated that “more than 22,000 IP addresses in Wisconsin have downloaded child pornography.” XBeyondX’s argument was that PF’s methodology—by extrapolating an estimate of the number by looking at other states—was flawed because:

To merely multiply the number of IP addresses identified during a 1 month period to conclude the number would be 9 times larger if the analysis continued for a 9 month period completely ignores the fact that one IP address may be downloading child pornography throughout that period.

From Cowboys to...Cows?

So now that we’ve taken a look at right-wing charges of left-wing bias at PolitiFact Texas, we now travel north to PolitiFact (PF) Wisconsin, where we have an opportunity to take a look at left-wing charges of right-wing bias against PF’s partners at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. And it will be using a similar methodology that was utilized by the critics of PolitiFact Texas: a “comparison” to support the belief that PolitiFact applies different standards in making its rulings, which in this case are allegedly more favorable to Republicans.

The subject writer in this case is Jed Lounsbury of Uppity Wisconsin.org, a website featuring “Progressive News from the Cheddarsphere.” We’re off to the right start already, since the counterpart at PolitiFact Texas was also easily established as a *non*-Progressive. And his very first sentence tells us after our right start where we are headed: “The Journal Sentinel’s PolitiFact is a joke.”

As one of the few keepers of PolitiFact’s rulings database, I immediately run into something that needs to be addressed:

PolitiFact has chosen to pull out the "pants on fire" ruling three times and all three times have been for Democrats. (PolitiFact has never rated a comment their highest designation of "true," but they have twice designated ads as "mostly true"-- and both of those have gone to Republican candidates.) …

…the MJS has not found a single statement or ad by a GOP politician to brand with their nuclear "pants on fire" designation and couldn't find anything by a Democrat to designate as "mostly true" or higher!

Jed may have not known at the time (since it was September) that there were quite a few True rulings made by PolitiFact Wisconsin, from its inception through the end of 2010. The distribution breaks down as follows, along with the Politi-Score: