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.

Politi-Score: Wrapping Up Bachmann (Jumping the Snark Part 5)

Here’s the rest of the statements by Michele Bachmann which have been fact-checked at least two times.

Bachmann: "My husband and I have never gotten a penny of money from the farm." (June 26)

PolitiFact (PF) ruled False, and there was this from FactCheck.org:

Bachmann falsely claimed that she and her husband "have never gotten a penny" from a family farm that received federal subsidies. But she reported income from the farm in 2006, 2008 and 2009 — the most recent year available — on her congressional financial disclosure statements.

Bachmann:  “The president released all of the oil from the Strategic Oil Reserve.” (June 26)

PolitiFact ruled False, while the Fact Checker included it as the "blended" Mostly False, expressed thus:

This is a huge overstatement. The Strategic Petroleum Reserve has 727 million barrels of oil, and the Obama administration announced last week that the U.S. will release 30 million barrels of oil from the reserve. (Another 30 million barrels will be released by European countries.)

So she’s off by a factor of 25.

Bachmann:  “One. That's the number of new drilling permits under the Obama administration since they came into office.” (March 26)

PolitiFact gave this one a Pants on Fire, while FactCheck.org said “not even close”:

This claim is not even close to the truth. A query of Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement’s online database shows 276 permits were approved for "new wells" — both developmental and exploratory — from the time Obama took office on Jan. 20, 2009 to the date of Bachmann’s speech.

Jumping the Snark AND Grading PF Liberal Style!

When I initially saw this result in my Excel “sort” I straight off dismissed it: Half True at PolitiFact versus False at FactCheck.org , for Michele Bachmann’s statement that “Obamacare” would require 16,500 new IRS agents to police it. After all, Half True can just as well mean Half False, and because the False could arguably just as well be a Mostly False at Factcheck since it’s subject to my own interpretation as to ranking, I didn’t think it was a candidate for a major post. But, just in case, I decided to first read FactCheck’s take on it. FactCheck was pretty emphatic (and a bit snarky, I might add) about the False:

Bachmann not only exaggerates but is flat-out wrong when she repeats the oft-stated false claim about the need to hire "16,500 IRS agents in charge of policing President Obama’s health care bill." As we reported previously, the figure of 16,500 originated from a House Republican report that relies on false assumptions and outright misrepresentation. The CBO estimated in March 2010 that the health care law would increase IRS administrative costs by $5 billion to $10 billion over 10 years. But that money will not be going for "16,500 IRS agents in charge of policing" health care mandates. The IRS is mostly responsible under the new law for administering tax credit programs, not collecting penalties.

When I looked at what PolitiFact had to say, I saw opportunity a-knocking for an excellent Grading PolitiFact Liberal Style piece. Because now I had another website verifying the same claim which was basically saying through its harsher “grade” that PolitiFact was going way too easy on Republicans/Conservatives. So,  here's the best of both worlds!

Bachmann made this statement in January when she followed up President Obama’s State of the Union message. In February, an actual estimate emerged as reported by U.S. News, of 1,054, besides the required systems changes to implement the law. So, compared to 16,500, we can safely say Bachmann’s claim is False to maybe Mostly False. But that conservatively biased (snark snark) PolitiFact just had to elevate it to an inconclusive Half True.

Politi-Score: Jumping the Snark (Part 3)

Michele Bachmann had one statement with what appeared to be “opposing” rulings on its veracity by PolitiFact (Mostly True) and the Washington Post Fact Checker (Mostly False). But closer examination revealed that they both treated the ruling similarly.



The statement in question as published in the Washington Post Fact Checker:

In February 2009, President Obama was very confident that his economic policies would turn the country around within a year.

He said, and I quote, ‘A year from now, I think people are going to see that we're starting to make some progress. If I don't have this done in three years, then there's going to be a one-term proposition.’ Well, Mr. President, your policies haven't worked. Spending our way out of the recession hasn't worked. And so Mr. President, we take you at your word.”

According to Kessler, Bachman left some crucial words out of her Obama quote which “undercut her claim.”

However, this was again a case I’ve previously discussed in my Bachmann series: it was part of a “blended ruling” Kessler awarded Bachmann for eight statements combined. As Kessler noted in his “Pinnochio Test” conclusion: (emphasis added)

Bachmann’s announcement speech had relatively minor transgressions, fact wise, but she did worse in her pre-announcement interviews. We are pleased to see she has modified her language on the 800,000 jobs — though this stale talking point should be dropped altogether — but she erred badly on her assertion about the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. She needs to figure out how to eliminate the use of hyperbole — such as “massive” or “all” — from her vocabulary.

On a blended basis, she is getting two Pinocchios, but that’s only because we do not use 1/2 Pinocchios.

In this “blended” ruling, Kessler’s toughest “grade” was levied on the 800,000 jobs Bachmann claimed would be lost under Obamacare and an assertion that Obama had released all the oil from the SPR. Other than that, the rest, including the statement that quoted Obama as saying he would turn the economy around in one to three years, he considered “relatively minor transgressions, fact-wise.” So I’m guessing the “turn the economy around” statement was the minor transgression, an improvement truth-wise over the other two, and would have garnered less than Two Pinnochios by itself—or maybe 1-1/2 if Kessler could award half Pinnochios....or even one, the Mostly True.

PolitiFact's banner:  "Not a major omission"...WaPo: "Relatively minor transgression."

PolitiFact used the same Bachmann quote in its analysis and several others which preceded it that, as writer Louis Jacobson indicated, expressed a similar “variation on the line” of Bachmann leaving out a not quite inconsequential part of what Obama actually said, which, to paraphrase Kessler, undercut her claim:

Politi-Score: Jumping the Snark (Part 2)

One of the many so-called “proofs” of liberal bias on the part of PolitiFact (PF) offered by my conservative counterpart was the “snark” it displayed with regard to Michele Bachmann in some of its initial rulings on her. I’ve noted since that if there was indeed snark, it has substantially slipped, but it may still be there today, only not on the part of PolitiFact.

The 50 “rulings” of four fact-checkers on Michele Bachmann, as I noted before, contained ten statements which had been fact-checked by more than one fact-checker, resulting in 16 duplicates. Let’s take a look at some of these.

The $105 billion hidden in Obamacare (March). Covered by all four fact-checkers, the rulings ranged from Mostly False (PF and FactCheck.org), False by the MPR PoliGraph, and a full Pants on Fire Four Pinnochios from Glenn Kessler’s The Fact Checker. A small bit of snark surfaced in his conclusion: (italics added)

There is no "bombshell" except Bachmann's bombast.

She is correct that Congress already has appropriated some spending in future years, but her claim that this money was "hidden" does not have credibility. The money for these programs was clearly described and analyzed by the Congressional Budget Office before the legislation was voted into law.

FactCheck.org said Bachmann was “wrong” on the $105 Billion, twice, first in the headline and then: (italics added)

Rep. Michele Bachmann’s claim…is way off base…Bachmann is just wrong to characterize the mandated appropriations in the health care law as "hidden." It was, as the saying goes, hidden in plain sight.

I assigned a Mostly False to this one, but it could have qualified for a “False.” The MPR PoliGraph gave it a False. PolitiFact’s ruling, on the other hand, was clearly minus the snark, and gave her the benefit of the doubt, awarding her a Mostly False.  So much for "liberal bias."

The 800,000-jobs-killing Obamacare (June). All four fact-checkers selected this statement as well, and in this case they all agreed on the ruling of Mostly False, since the CBO estimated there would be a “small impact.” That is, except for FactCheck.org who took it a little further calling it an outright “false claim,” so I classified it likewise. They were pretty clear on this, headlining the check “Repeating a Falsehood on Healthcare” along with a twist of snark, if you want to call it that:  (italics added)

Politi-Score: Jumping the Snark (Part 1)

Michele Bachmann will be my test baby for the first in a series of Politi-Psychotic pieces examining and analyzing the results of multiple fact-checkers on an individual politician’s statements.

Bachmann has been getting more reviews lately because of her presidential inclinations, and there are four fact-check sources to consider on her, and “consolidate” into one. A total of 50 Bachmann statements (all of which were made during 2011) are broken down as follows in parentheses: PolitiFact (15), FactCheck.org (15), the Washington Post Fact Checker (13), and the Minnesota Public Radio (MPR) PoliGraph (7).

After categorizing the statements into their levels of truthfulness, I realized I may have to revive the Politi-Score just retired in favor of PolitiFact’s Truth Index. It could be said that the Politi-Score has undergone a complete re-design and emerged as a comprehensive, “global” Truth Index, taking into account other fact-checkers. So, look for that tag soon.

I tried to keep the rules consistent to those used in my last post on the Fact-Checker: FactCheck.org was the tough one, because it does not grant rulings. So, there were basically four categories: True (which, like Glenn Kessler’s Fact Checker, are very rarely awarded); Inconclusive (I don’t think FactCheck.org would even publish those), which would rank a Half True; Misleading, which would get a Mostly False, and False, and this is where FactCheck.org uses the words “False” or “Inaccurate” (untrue, erroneous) somewhere in its review describing the statement at hand. If it does not use those words, it falls into the Misleading or Mostly False category. I did do one “Mostly True” however for FactCheck. This was a numbers claim which fell within the percentage “minimum” for Mostly True that’s been posted about before in a review of PolitiFact numbers claims. The MPR PoliGraph was handled similarly to the Washington Post Fact Checker-PolitiFact Truth Index in my previous post.

Of the 50 statements, one third, or 16 were duplicates (speaking of "selection bias"). That is, there were 10 statements which were also evaluated and ruled on by another fact-checker. There were two statements reviewed by all four fact-checkers (6 dupes). There were two statements reviewed by three of the fact-checkers (4 dupes). The other six were reviewed by two fact-checkers (6 dupes). Those I was most interested in examining were ones which could have (widely) divergent rulings. However, there were cases where the rulings had to be reconciled with the methods of the Fact-Checker and the context they said they examining, in other words, they may not be as divergent as thought.

Here is Bachmann’s Truth Index for each Fact-Checker, with the newly appointed “Politi-Score” at the end, which is the overall average:

I have to figure out a better way to present these graphs:  CLICK on graphic TO ENLARGE.

In my next post, I will take a look at some of the individual duplicated statements and the discrepancies between rulings between and among the fact-checkers.

Sidebar: Snark-o-meter and Michele Bachmann (Updated 2X)

Recently I noticed a new Factcheck  on Michele Bachmann. Bachmann is at the rock bottom of the GPA’s, averaging only 56 points, the lowest of everyone, including pundits, of those who’ve had over five rulings.

Factcheck's article didn’t sound too “non-snarkey” either, although it was mild compared to PolitiFact's earlier rulings.

**At Friday’s conservative Values Voter Summit, Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann spoke out against "falsehoods and rumors" about the tea party movement. We applaud any call to combat misinformation — but Bachmann would do well to guard against falsehoods and rumors herself. In the same speech, she complained about "Speaker Pelosi, who has been busy sticking the taxpayer for a $100,000 bar tab for alcohol on the military jets that she is flying." That’s a totally off-base assertion that we addressed back in March.”**

Looking at a Factcheck to PolitiFact comparison I had done earlier, it seems that it has given Bachmann nothing but False rulings as well (since the beginning of the year), of three that have been done on her. In other words, maybe it’s just not PolitiFact being “snarky”.  Maybe Bachmann’s just really a liar.

Post-script (9-22-10):  PolitiFact just published something on Bachmann confirming my findings.

Post-script to Post-script (12-6-09):  The new "wide measure" Politi-score measure (the About This Blog page shows how it is calculated) makes Michele Bachmann one of the very few individuals with more than five PF rulings with a NEGATIVE Politi-Score.  That's what happens when you've been ruled only two ways, 6 (six) Pants on Fire (which by wide measure is -25) and 7 (seven) False, which adds zero (0) points to the score.  This gives Michele a wide measure Politi-score of  -11.5.

Sidebar: The Snark-o-meter

Snarky: A combination of the words Nasty and Sarcastic, meaning “being unpleasant and scornful”

On August 13, Bryan White posted that anecdotal proof of Politifact’s left-leaning bias is its treatment of Michele Bachmann (in a Facebook PolitiFact thread with commenter Derek Grass):

“….One obvious example comes from the snarkiness PolitiFact (PF) employs in its ratings of Michele Bachmann. I'm aware of no corresponding recipient of such treatment from the political left, and it's not for lack of candidates…. Any level of snark doesn't belong, and it's easily detectable no matter what party is the subject. You don't find snark in an Annenberg fact check.”

Just out of curiousity, I went back and looked at her PF rulings for 2010. Nothing looked particularly “snarky”: nasty, sarcastic or unpleasant. It was fairly straightforward. So I went back and looked at everything right from the beginning of PF’s “birth”—and there it was. If there’s a Snarkometer, its pointer blew off the meter when I read this paragraph at the end of one ruling ("snark" words are in italics):

Sidebar: Arianna and Sarah on PolitiFact Rulings

Recently there were two responses from opposite camps on PolitiFact’s Fact-Checking rulings, namely, Arianna Huffington (“Democrat”) and Sarah Palin (“Republican”). I thought it might be worth checking both of their responses, as well as their fact-checks, to see how both compared as an experiment in looking at PolitiFact’s supposed “bias.”

Palin’s original claim: “ …this is going to result in the largest tax increase in U.S. history.” (in response to Chris Wallace question on tax cuts expiring FOR TOP 2% [he WAS very specific])

What PolitiFact (PF) checked: ….” her claim that the Democratic plan would result in "the largest tax increase in history."

Gist of Palin’s response: “There is NO plan” by Obama or the Democrats. PF are the pants on fire liars.

My summary: (1) She conflated top 2% tax with *everyone* tax. (2) She refused to recognize (or didn’t know about) *unofficial* proposals and (3) she still thinks it’s 2008 and she’s campaigning (or maybe she’s campaigning for 2012, who knows).

Huffington’s original claim: “Halliburton defrauded the U.S. government… hundreds of millions of dollars in Iraq.”

What PF checked: “…we decided to fact-check Huffington's statement that Halliburton defrauded the U.S. government of "hundreds of millions of dollars in Iraq.”

Gist of Huffington’s response: “…PolitiFact's facts clearly supported a conclusion different than the one its editors came to.” PF is “equivocating.”

My summary: (1) Inefficiencies are not the same as fraud, but Arianna clearly implies they are the same (2) She does not address the security problem (which KBR procured and illegally billed for because the military often did not protect their workers) and (3) Concluding with her emotive “Workers of the World Unite” complaints with regard to AIG and BP sort of misdirects her anger at PF’s “equivocation.” That being said, PF could have easily gone with Mostly True. But I would not go with True.

Analysis of both: