Politi-Score: Deciphering the Truth Index

While some call it style over substance, even entertainment or novelty, PolitiFact’s introduction of its Truth Index was inevitable. Too many pundits out there, myself included, were applying scoring systems to their Truth-o-Meter rankings to see what trends and statistics could be gleaned from it, especially on an individual basis.

For now, it appears that PolitiFact is avoiding the “individual” basis and is using it to show time period trends, such as, what I pointed out earlier using the Politi-Score, how scores fell (got “less truthful”) during the 2010 Election Cycle or this past February in Wisconsin. It also appears to be avoiding that topic which likely interests people the most: macro comparisons of Democrat versus Republican. But the inevitable may occur: I suppose Adair may be looking for a good reason to justify why Democrats score consistently more truthful than Republicans, on the other hand, the weighted to False scoring system he chose will make it far worse, so it’s going to be difficult to “even it up” between now and then, if that is his intent.

Here is Bill Adair’s description of how it is scored:

* Here's the full formula:

(# True x 20) + (# Mostly X 10) + (# Half X 0) + (# Barely X -10) +
(# False X -20) + (# Pants on Fire X -30)
____________________________________________________________ X 100
(Total # Statements) X 20

Let’s reduce the fraction of this formula down to its lowest common denominators, which takes into account the double-down of the “actual truth/ideal truth” (the divisor, [Total # Statements] x 20) in the calculation. While the Politi-Score starts at assigning 100 points for True and then moves down in 25 point increments, PolitiFact’s Truth Index starts at assigning 100 points for True and then moves down in 50 point increments. This makes Half True the “zero” line for the Truth Index (instead of False, which is the “zero” line on the Politi-Score), and “bottoms out” at -150 for a Pants on Fire ruling, as compared to -25 in the Politi-Score (a whopping 600% higher!).

Here is the full comparison in table format:

Ruling	Politi-Score Assignment Points	PolitiFact Truth Index Assignment Points.
True	100	100
Mostly True	75	50
Half True	50	0
Barely True	25	-50
False	0	-100
Pants on Fire!	-25	-150

So the Truth Index is a heavily-weighted-to-false index. This has been a common feature in the other scoring methods I’ve reviewed, particularly that of a recent colorful Daily Beast piece. When I started the Politi-Score, I used a student grading system (100, True or A, 90, Mostly True or B, etc.), as I thought this would be more understandable. When I posted it on a PolitiFact Facebook Discussion Board, I received a recommendation that it might be more intuitive to widen the measure so that 100 would be True, down to zero for False, although there was some disagreement on how punishing the Pants on Fire score should be. That way, Half True would be “half of True” at 50, and it would be easy to discern the scores. It was felt by some that -25 points, which I eventually decided to use, might not be a sufficient enough penalty for Pants on Fire. Apparently, when PolitiFact decided to do this, they felt it wasn’t sufficient enough either, since their scoring method gives Pants on Fire -150 points.

With using this scoring system, however, the trends will still show very similarly, since they are high-to-low by equal increments. My only caution to PolitiFact is that, as I’ve already noted, it serves to showcase the bias even more of that which already appears to some to be already biased, as it magnifies the effects of Barely True, False and Pants on Fire rulings on the overall scores. So Bill Adair better stick with “daily average” comparisons (which he is doing for now) and leave out political affiliation or individual comparisons unless he just doesn’t really care.

Grading PolitiFact *Liberal*-Style: Score 5 in June

On July 4, PolitiFact published a Mailbag issue in which readers took it to task for some of its rulings from the month of June. While I try to critically think on just about everything, especially when it comes to grading PolitiFact in a liberal style, it seems to me that more “thinkers” make for better ideas and insights. And as I haven’t done much lately in the “Grading PolitiFact Liberally” area, this mailbag gave me the opportunity to catch up. Because some of the readers have some compellingly good reasons for either upgrading a Democrat or downgrading a Republican—for a total of FIVE rulings. So let’s get started:

1. Liberals should just revere that Palin-speak!

Several readers charged that we [PolitiFact] were too soft in giving former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin a Barely True -- rather than a False or Pants on Fire -- for her comment that "Part of (Paul Revere’s) ride was to warn the British that were already there that, 'Hey, you're not going to succeed.' "

One reader wrote, "Going to your definition of Barely True, the ‘element of truth’ you were referring to was that he ‘warned the British.’ But he did not, in fact or in deed, warn the British. He bluffed the British, since his intention was to gain his freedom, not to give them notice of danger. The statement should be correctly be rated False.

Another reader, tongue half-way in cheek, offered a justification to rate Palin’s comment True.

"Technically, she was right since there was no America yet. All of the citizens in the area were still considered British subjects, and any warning given by Revere would certainly have been heard by British subjects that were still loyal to the King, as well as those that wanted their freedom from the crown," the reader wrote.

Chris Wallace of Fox News got it right on this one: Palin “messed up.” I mean, I’m sure Revere intended to get captured by the British just so he could warn them. As for the “tongue half-way in cheek” excuse most likely offered by some sublimely bloviating type, Wikipedia explains:

Riding through present-day Somerville, Medford, and Arlington, Revere warned patriots along his route, many of whom set out on horseback to deliver warnings of their own. By the end of the night there were probably as many as 40 riders throughout Middlesex County carrying the news of the army's advance. Revere did not shout the phrase later attributed to him ("The British are coming!"): His mission depended on secrecy, the countryside was filled with British army patrols, and the Massachusetts colonists (who were predominantly English in ethnic origin[43]) still considered themselves British.

So, why then the secrecy and how did those who were loyal to the King know the signals? Anyway, Palin could well have merited a False on this one. Score 1.

2. POW! BAM! It's Bachmann!

We also received a number of comments suggesting that we were too lenient on Republican presidential candidate Michele Bachmann when she said, "The CBO, the Congressional Budget Office, has said that Obamacare will kill 800,000 jobs." We rated that statement Barely True.

"Hey guys, you blew it," wrote one reader. "The CBO did not say that 800,000 jobs will disappear -- it said that 800,000 workers might disappear. The jobs that they occupied like would still exist to be filled by other workforce participants. This would reduce the unemployment rate slightly, make the workers seeking the vacated jobs better off and presumably make the disappearing workers better off, since leaving would be their choice."

This one is kind of sad—800,000 people will no longer have to work because they don’t have to just for the insurance. Most of the jobs would still be there. When some of those people leave because they now have health insurance, they will necessarily have to be replaced. In other words, in a sense, it’s creating jobs, not killing them. Bachmann distorts this CBO extrapolation way out of line in a disingenuous way. Not only that, she repeated it. Misleading, says PolitiFact? Your Factcheck.org cohorts are calling it flat out false: (emphasis added)

Uncle Jay Explains the Afghanistan Troop Withdrawal Plans

[I knew I had heard this somewhere before!]

Hoystories on the Half-Shell

Incomprehensible and Mind-Boggling, if you’re a Republican.

Matt Hoy of Hoystory’s method of looking at PolitiFact (PF) is to point out seeming contradictions, and it seems like he has hit on one here again. A comparison of rulings on statements by Mitt Romney and Adam Hasner, on basically the same subject has come down to, as Hoy headlines, the “same idea, (with) different results.”



What to do, what to do when they're both Republicans!

The writers for these two PF pieces were Amy Sherman of PolitiFact Florida for the first one on Hasner, written in late May, and Lou Jacobson for PF National for the one on Romney in mid-June. Both seem to be covering the same subject: the rate of job recovery and/or job creation under Obama—is it the worst since Hoover and/or the Great Depression? Amy Sherman found a statement by Adam Hasner, a former Florida state legislator (in his criticism of its Senator Bill Nelson and Obama), to be Mostly True, who was talking about job creation, while Jacobson determined Romney’s statement to be False, who was talking about job recovery. Or, was it thus: while it’s Mostly True (Hasner) that this is one of the weakest post-recession job creation periods since the Great Depression, it’s False (Romney) that it’s been the slowest job recovery since Hoover during the Great Depression.

Let’s first look at their words:

Adam Hasner (tweeting): “Obama-Nelson economic record. Job creation ... at slowest post-recession rate since Great Depression” (Mostly True)

Mitt Romney (on the campaign trail): “It's taken longer to get Americans back to work than it took during the Great Depression. This is the slowest job recovery since Hoover. It breaks my heart. I want to get us back to work.” (False)

Both Jacobson and Sherman use the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) as a source of data. As stated by Amy Sherman in her ruling on Hasner:

According to NBER, there have been 13 recessions since the one that started August 1929 and lasted for 43 months, and the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics has month-by-month jobs data for 12 of them.

This was the basis for Sherman’s awarding a ruling to Hasner of Mostly True: “Hasner's off by only one recession out of 12.”

The July 1st Ironic News Report

With Host Julianna Forlano

Politi-Score: First Half 2011 Results à la PolitiFact

This blog has looked at the PolitiFact (PF) scoring methods of various political websites such as the Daily Beast and Smart Politic’s Eric Ostermeier. PolitiFact, in its new mobile app, has developed its own “rules” (as far as I can see) with regard to “scoring”—

1. Everyone is included (office holders, non office holders, blogs, e-mails, non-partisans).

2. Individual “scores” are not shown based on numbers but relatively based on percentages (in a color coded bar chart format).

There seems to be an avoidance of any comparison of Republican/Conservative with Democrat/Liberal because to do so would reveal, as the Daily Beast and Smart Politics have found, that the rulings favor Democrats. Below is how PolitiFact’s mobile app would look if, for the first half of 2011, you could get a reading of Republicans/Conservatives, Democrats/Liberals, and “Other” in total. I’ve put the Politi-Score to the right of each one in the Bar Chart.

Percentages are included in the bar chart for better clarification.

As I was compiling these rulings, it appeared that there were a lot more Republicans being reviewed, perhaps because of their nationwide rout of the Democrats in the elections this past November…just more Republican statements to review because there’s just more Republicans in office! Indeed, a quick computation revealed that the percentage of Republican rulings had increased about 8 percent from just over 50% to 54%, while the Democrats dropped 16% from about 44% to almost 36% of all PolitiFact rulings.

Lil White Lies: Mister Predictor

Yes, my conservative counterpart has made yet another startling prediction about PolitiFact: (emphasis added):

I was thinking on Friday (I know, I know! I'm trying to quit!). PolitiFact is taking a pounding to their reputation on their FaceBook page. And, no, I'm not patting myself on the back. There are a pretty fair number of "fans" who write strong criticisms of the PolitiFact entries.

If this trend continues, I foresee PolitiFact either curbing their hosting of criticism or terminating the FaceBook page altogether. It is, in the end, all about protecting and burnishing the brand. If the criticisms are not somehow marginalized, the brand suffers. I just can't see the St. Petersburg Times putting up with that over the course of time.

Only problem is, he said this on November 21, 2009, in his blog, about 18+ months ago. Since then, PolitiFact’s Facebook page has gone from about 7,000 fans to approaching 38,000, and PolitiFact has expanded with at least six (or more) other state partnerships. Oh, and I think they got that Pullitzer for 2009 as well. So, instead of patting yourself on the back, Bryan White, maybe you need to kick yourself in the arse for being so egotistical.

And just in case he goes back and deletes the post (I get the impression he checks his “Stat-Counter” frequently), I’ve snipped a screen-print of it.