A better
standard is needed for me to say something at PolitiFact (PF) looks like
"liberal" bias than for me to be a Republican and just not like what
they say like many of its detractors. Or to pick something out of selected rulings that I think is "bad journalism" when it's just my opinion.
Let's review what I've come across so far that I have assigned to
"Liberal Proof of PolitiFact Liberal Bias" because I honestly have to
admit there isn't much way around explaining it otherwise:
(1) Yes, there is some inconsistency on the application of tax rates in the rulings, especially what exactly an
"effective tax rate" should consist of, as noted in this recent post. A ruling from PF Ohio and one from PF Rhode Island
are particularly suspect for not being as thorough as they could have been and as a result appearing to jack up the Truth-o-Meter for Democrats.
(2) The
PolitiFact National writers do seem to assign a lot more Pants on Fire to Republicans than their stateside counterparts (as well as produce rulings which make the Republicans look less truthful overall), with two exceptions.
(3) The Republican Party of Virginia was correct in one part of their over-the-top study of PolitiFact Virginia this past July: it did appear to "dump" positive Republican rulings in the weekend Richmond Times Dispatch; however, they may be wrong assuming most people only read the news on weekdays.
(4) For the first three months of 2012, a weekly trend analysis of the Democrat and Republican Truth Index appeared to indicate that at the end of the month, ratings would "even up." I haven't done any analysis since, but have it set up in my data to do it for the year 2012. What this means--those with a conspiracy mindset might think this was a deliberate attempt by PolitiFact to periodically even up the Truth-o-Meter (or the Truth Index) between parties. I'm not sure what it means, and it might not occur again.
(5) Pat Boone's advertisement about Obamacare's IPAB rationing care got doubled up in Pants on Fire from two relatively-leaning-left-based-on-Truth-Index writers, but when a Georgia congress person made a very similar statement calling the rationing "the power to deny care to seniors" it received a Half True from PF Georgia.
(6) In my version of what was to become my conservative counterpart's Pants on Fire factor, a measure of how much "more" Republicans are assigned Pants on Fire rulings, I looked at the Pants on Fire for PolitiFact's first 5,000 rulings and then proportioned them to the percentage of rulings overall. The Republicans had 2.5 times as many Pants on Fire as Democrats, not considering the percentages.
7) I also looked at the Truth Index in terms of writers, by occupation (officials versus PACs, etc.) and by what I judged to be "local" rulings, for the year 2011, with varying results, although for the most part, they would predominantly favor the Democrats. The one exception I found for what I judged to be "local" rulings, done for the first time in the final quarter of 2011, was totally reversed in the first quarter of 2012.
8) PolitiFact's most egregious problem may be "cookie cutter" rulings, where rulings are duplicated and serve to amplify the Truth Index negatively, although the claimant often goes without political affiliation even though it's obvious what that affiliation probably is. A major one this year was the across-the-board claim by "bloggers" that all the Democrats in congress were card-carrying socialists, where almost all the PF states with a Democrat Congress member accused of "carrying the card" decided to jump on board and basically copy/paste the same ruling, inflicting a lot of Pants on Fire on those bloggers who had to be Republicans. It could also be a subject as seemingly innocuous as light bulbs, a popular one in mid-2011. Now it's been turned on its head a bit with the doubled up-assignment of "True" to a Democrat.
Now, there's a few rulings of the same genre where PolitiFact has not been kind to the Democrats, and an excellent case of what could be termed Republican bias by PolitiFact Wisconsin. And it would not take a lot of analyses to refute a few of my findings. It just needs to be neatly summarized and put out there.
(3) The Republican Party of Virginia was correct in one part of their over-the-top study of PolitiFact Virginia this past July: it did appear to "dump" positive Republican rulings in the weekend Richmond Times Dispatch; however, they may be wrong assuming most people only read the news on weekdays.
(4) For the first three months of 2012, a weekly trend analysis of the Democrat and Republican Truth Index appeared to indicate that at the end of the month, ratings would "even up." I haven't done any analysis since, but have it set up in my data to do it for the year 2012. What this means--those with a conspiracy mindset might think this was a deliberate attempt by PolitiFact to periodically even up the Truth-o-Meter (or the Truth Index) between parties. I'm not sure what it means, and it might not occur again.
(5) Pat Boone's advertisement about Obamacare's IPAB rationing care got doubled up in Pants on Fire from two relatively-leaning-left-based-on-Truth-Index writers, but when a Georgia congress person made a very similar statement calling the rationing "the power to deny care to seniors" it received a Half True from PF Georgia.
(6) In my version of what was to become my conservative counterpart's Pants on Fire factor, a measure of how much "more" Republicans are assigned Pants on Fire rulings, I looked at the Pants on Fire for PolitiFact's first 5,000 rulings and then proportioned them to the percentage of rulings overall. The Republicans had 2.5 times as many Pants on Fire as Democrats, not considering the percentages.
7) I also looked at the Truth Index in terms of writers, by occupation (officials versus PACs, etc.) and by what I judged to be "local" rulings, for the year 2011, with varying results, although for the most part, they would predominantly favor the Democrats. The one exception I found for what I judged to be "local" rulings, done for the first time in the final quarter of 2011, was totally reversed in the first quarter of 2012.
8) PolitiFact's most egregious problem may be "cookie cutter" rulings, where rulings are duplicated and serve to amplify the Truth Index negatively, although the claimant often goes without political affiliation even though it's obvious what that affiliation probably is. A major one this year was the across-the-board claim by "bloggers" that all the Democrats in congress were card-carrying socialists, where almost all the PF states with a Democrat Congress member accused of "carrying the card" decided to jump on board and basically copy/paste the same ruling, inflicting a lot of Pants on Fire on those bloggers who had to be Republicans. It could also be a subject as seemingly innocuous as light bulbs, a popular one in mid-2011. Now it's been turned on its head a bit with the doubled up-assignment of "True" to a Democrat.
Now, there's a few rulings of the same genre where PolitiFact has not been kind to the Democrats, and an excellent case of what could be termed Republican bias by PolitiFact Wisconsin. And it would not take a lot of analyses to refute a few of my findings. It just needs to be neatly summarized and put out there.
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