Flub & Scrub: Mitch McConnell edition

On Friday May 25 PolitiFact posted a fact check of Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.).  I won't quote from it because PolitiFact, perhaps only temporarily, has scrubbed the story from its website with apparently only an announcement on Twitter in explanation:

We're revising our fact-check on Sen. McConnell's claim on health insurers. New item will be posted later today.

PolitiFact later tweeted that it would publish the revised item next week.  We'll see.

So what happened?

PolitiFact rated "Mostly False" a claim from McConnell that HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius had forbidden insurance companies from sending information to policyholders about the effects of Obamacare.  Then Michael F. Cannon happened.  Cannon sent out a tweet of his own:

You forgot this ow.ly/lmRNK MT @politifact: Ins co's told not to tell about Obamacare impact. Mostly False ow.ly/lmS5U
— Michael F. Cannon (@mfcannon) May 24, 2013

Cannon's URL led to his 2010 article "Secretary Sebelius Slips on the Brass Knuckles," where he detailed Sebelius' demands that insurers not communicate to policyholders information about the Affordable Care Act she considered false or misleading.

I ran across the McConnell rating on PolitiFact's Facebook page that afternoon, well after Cannon had tweeted about it.  I spot-checked the story as I sometimes do.  The story claimed a GAO report said the HHS office "in general" acted properly in responding to what it regarded as a misleading taxpayer-funded message the insurer Humana sent out to Medicare Advantage policyholders.

I looked at the report.  I confirmed that PolitiFact reported more-or-less accurately that the report "in general" found nothing amiss in the handling of situation.

But I also found a significant caveat PolitiFact failed to mention (bold emphasis added):

Although CMS’s actions generally conformed to its policies and procedures, the September 21, 2009, memorandum instructing all MA organizations to discontinue communications on pending legislation while CMS conducted its investigation was unusual. Officials from the MA organizations and CMS regional offices that we interviewed told us they were unaware of CMS ever directing all MA organizations to immediately stop an activity before CMS had determined whether that activity violated federal laws, regulations, or MA program guidance. When asked about this directive, officials from CMS’s central office stated that, given the degree of potential harm to beneficiaries, the action was appropriate for the circumstances.

A source PolitiFact cited provided information supporting McConnell's claim.  And PolitiFact didn't mention it.

I posted this evidence to PolitiFact's Facebook page, arguing that PolitiFact's story was more misleading than McConnell's statement.

As it happens, PolitiFact scrubbed its Facebook page of the link to the scrubbed article at its main website.  So those Facebook comments are gone along with PolitiFact's wall post about its McConnell article.  Mostly gone, that is.  We have a few screen captures.

I argue that a reporter's background knowledge and ideology predispose the reporter to make mistakes of this type--missing obvious evidence mentioned in a source document--in cases where that ideology is threatened or attacked.  This applies even if journalists otherwise keep their ideology secret.

This was a big mistake.  Journalistic organizations do not lightly pull entire articles from a website.  Count it as yet another evidence helping to show PolitiFact's liberal bias.

And now we'll get another opportunity to gauge PolitiFact's transparency as it deals with a big mistake.  The past record isn't particularly good.

I Need A Facts 'Cuz I'm Goin' Down

You tell lies thinking I can't see, You can't cry 'cuz you're laughing at me
I'm down (I'm really down)

-The Beatles

It's been more than a decade since Bill Clinton put a face on the concept of obfuscation when he uttered the now infamous words "It depends on what the meaning of the word 'is' is." Thankfully, PolitiFact has resurrected the is defense in their ongoing protection of ObamaCare.

Image from PolitiFact.com

PolitiFact put their Pulitzer-winning skills to the test while grappling with the difficult question of Nancy Pelosi's confusing, ambiguous statement. Is the ACA bringing the cost of health care down? Heroically, PolitiFact pores through the numbers and sorts out the truth:

It depends partly on what you mean by "down."

Ah, yes, that most complicated and mysterious of all adverbs; "down." What does it mean?

Apparently to the Fact Mongers at PolitiFact, it means up, but not as up as before. Or something:

Pelosi said "the Affordable Care Act is bringing the cost of health care in our country down." But it’s the rate of growth that’s dropped, not the actual cost of care — which is still rising.

Something going up is generally considered to be the exact opposite of something going down.

This Half True rating is pure editorial spin. Pelosi is flatly wrong. PolitiFact acknowledges that costs are rising. And even if we accept at face value their argument that costs are rising slower than they were before, there's hardly an objective way to determine the ACA's influence on that.

When your fact check stumbles over what the definition of the word "down" is, you have to wonder if you're in the right line of work.


Bryan adds:

A "Half True" is almost defensible if Pelosi truly meant to refer to health care costs rising more slowly than they would have in the absence of the ACA.

The context of her statement, however, makes that interpretation implausible (bold emphasis added):

"Many of the initiatives that he passed are what are coming to bear now, including the Affordable Care Act. The Affordable Care Act is bringing the cost of health care in our country down in both the public and private sector.

"And that is what is largely responsible for the deficit coming down."

Slowing the growth of health care spending cannot bear responsibility for "the deficit coming down." PolitiFact's evaluation of Pelosi's statement involves giving her the benefit of the doubt twice:  When she says health care costs are going down she means growing more slowly, and when she says the deficit is coming down she means it's growing more slowly.

The deficit is coming down in 2013, not growing more slowly.  The CBO released statements to that effect in February and May of this year.  It therefore makes no sense to think Pelosi was saying the deficit is growing more slowly.

It's another Olympian flub by PolitiFact. Rachel Maddow's going to explode over this incompetence.  Any day now...

A Fact Too Far

PolitiFact Rhode Island published an article yesterday that highlights the distance between fact checking and what PolitiFact actually does.

Image from PolitiFact

At issue is radio host John DePetro's comments regarding the current resting place of the deceased Boston bomber: "You know, in a way, think of who else is there. That is, President Kennedy is buried not far from there, in Virginia,"

PolitiFact's findings?

We used the Google Maps Distance Calculator to find the actual span between Kennedy's grave at Arlington and the Al-Barzakh Cemetery on Sadie Lane in Doswell, Virginia.

Driving distance: 87 miles.
Bee-line distance: 74 miles.
That's about 55,817 casket lengths.

When we informed DePetro of the distance and asked if he was still bothered, he wrote in an e-mail, "Yes. Insult to bury him so close to JFK. Johnston landfill was my choice or out to sea."

Notice anything missing?  PolitiFact failed to provide a standardized measurement for the linear distance of "not far." Probably because no such definition exists. It's an opinion, and one DePetro articulated quite effectively.

Any guess on PolitiFact's rating?

[T]o say that such a distance should somehow spark offense strikes us as mildly ridiculous, so we rate his statement Pants on Fire!

This is a wholly inappropriate sentence to include in a supposed fact check. We've long argued that there is simply no objective definition of what makes a claim "ridiculous." It's a subjective term determined only by the personal inclinations of PolitiFact's editors. Compounding that subjectivity, PolitiFact finds DePetro's claim only mildly ridiculous in this case. So now not only is the Pants on Fire rating based on an opinion, it's also subject to a sliding scale, the standards for which have yet to be published. Is it a Truth-O-Meter or a mood ring?

It would be interesting to learn when PolitiFact acquired the magical gift of objectively defining what should or should not cause offense. The fact that PolitiFact Rhode Island isn't offended does not make something inoffensive. That's a personal judgement that has no place in a dispassionate determination of fact.

This article is yet another example of how PolitiFact operates as an editorial site sheathed in a false blanket of objectivity. There is simply no way for them to measure the accuracy of DePetro's opinion, and even less possible for them to place a factual determination on what is or isn't offensive.

This is an opinion piece. It's not a fact check. It is dishonest for PolitiFact to suggest otherwise.

Got 29 States but a Fact Ain't One

On Tuesday PolitiFact published a rating on Martina Navratilova that caught the ire of liberal bloggers:

PolitiFact gave Navratilova the dreaded Half-True rating, and this upset Wonkette writer "DOKTOR ZOOM," who complained:

Politifact, which now apparently is fact-checking retired pro athletes, to contribute to serious political discourse, checked into Navratilova’s claim, determined that employers in 29 states can indeed fire people for being gay, and rated Navratilova’s statement as “half true,” because it turns out that there are a few exceptions.

It doesn't happen often, but we're inclined to agree with ZOOM on this one.  We think it's a legitimate gripe. Of course, that's probably because it's a gripe we've been making for years, but we won't hold it against the suddenly enlightened left for (probably temporarily) noticing how arbitrary PolitiFact's ratings system really is.

The Wonkette article highlights PolitiFact's lame logic:

But what are these exceptions? First off, the Politifrackers acknowledge that 21 states and the District of Columbia “explicitly prohibit employment discrimination based on sexual orientation,” and that in the 29 states that do not have such laws,

“employees in these states who believe they are discriminated against would not have grounds to win a lawsuit alleging discrimination.”

OK, so Navratilova was right, and her statement is true, right? Well, no, you see, because what she said took a single sentence, and there are paragraph-length exceptions

The gist of it is that Navratilova is correct that in 29 states there is no statewide protection for gay and lesbian employees from being fired for their sexuality. PolitiFact knocks the tennis star down a few notches because, gee golly, some companies have policies against discrimination, and some employees are protected by federal statutes. That's a bogus argument, and it's not fact checking. The fact that some people in specific employment situations are protected does not negate the fact that other people are not protected.

Navratilova is right, and PolitiFact is playing its ususal word games.  

Our regular readers might wonder why we chose to highlight this as an example of PolitiFact's liberal bias. Since we started this site we've acknowledged that PolitiFact's arbitrary standards will eventually harm both the left and the right. This rating doesn't change that. PolitiFact simply doesn't offer quality fact checking, and it will inevitably flub ratings both ways. As we've documented, PolitiFact's inadequacy overwhelmingly harms those on the right more often than those on the left. This rating provides an example of how flawed their system is.

Any reputation PolitiFact has as a dispassionate arbiter of facts is completely undeserved. For all the bluster, they're a run-of-the-mill commentary site. Wonkette is correct to point out the subjective nature of this rating, but it's nothing out of the ordinary for PolitiFact. Navratilova is simply collateral damage in PolitiFact's inept carpet bombing of reality.

Our purpose is to highlight PolitiFact's liberal bent. But PolitiFact puts out shoddy work and opinionated claptrap that often distorts the truth instead of clarifying it. Eventually both sides of the aisle will take a hit.

The reality is no one should trust them.


Bryan adds:

It's worth emphasizing just how normal it is for PolitiFact to rule "Half True" for a claim that is true.  As Rachel Maddow notes, facts are either true or false.  One look at PolitiFact's list of "Half-True" rulings shows a great set of recent examples like the one Maddow complained of, including specific ratings of Sen. Marco Rubio and Sen. Jeff Sessions.

Rubio said the Gang of Eight immigration bill isn't amnesty.  PolitiFact said that it depends on how one defines "amnesty."  Yet Rubio used the normal, commonly understood definition.  "Half True," said PolitiFact.  Maddow went ballistic.  Just kidding.  She was able to contain herself until the Navratilova rating served as the last straw.

Sessions said prosecutions for failing gun background checks were down every year under Obama.  It's true for every year for which records have been published, and PolitiFact claims to rule according to information available when a claim is made.  "Half True," said PolitiFact, reasoning that Sessions kind of implied a trend that continued through the current year, and we can't confirm that yet.  PolitiFact also reasoned (!) that since prosecutions were also low under Bush therefore prosecutions under Obama "didn't nosedive."  The left wing blogosphere yawned if it noticed at all, as if "Half True" is the best we should expect from those lyin' Republicans.


Edit 5/8/13: Originally this post inadvertently included a draft paragraph at the end that was not intended for publication. It has been removed-Jeff

Edit: 5/9/13: Added "We think" to third paragraph-Jeff

PolitiFact and the 77-cent solution

Is there gender discrimination in wages?

PolitiFact, a project of the Tampa Bay Times supposedly designed to help you find the truth in politics, has the answer.  In fact, PolitiFact does even better than giving us an answer.  It gives us two different answers to the same question.

Is it true that "women earn 77 cents for every dollar earned by a man"?

It's "Mostly True," says PolitiFact.  It's "Half True," says PolitiFact.

You'd think they might be able to settle on "Mostly Half True."

How is it that PolitiFact can reach two different conclusions about the same claim, know that it has reached two different conclusions regarding the same claim and yet fail to resolve the discrepancy?

This is supposed to be fact checking, not "Wheel of Fortune."

We've said for years that PolitiFact's rating system by its nature forces reporters and editors into making subjective judgment calls.  This case serves as yet another example supporting that claim.

Could some difference in the claims or the context of the claims justify a different rating?  PolitiFact mentions no such differences.  Yet PolitiFact has terrific motivation for explaining the different ratings.  In its recent fact check of Rep. Marcia Fudge's "77 cent" claim, PolitiFact Ohio cited other PolitiFact ratings of similar statements:

PolitiFact has made several examinations of the claim that women earn 76 to 77 percent as much as men, and found that they lacked context because they failed to account for factors like education, type of job, age of employee and experience level.

The hotlink associated with "several examinations" leads to a "Half True" rating from PolitiFact Georgia for a claim effectively identical to Fudge's.  Fudge received a "Mostly True" rating.

The writers and editors at PolitiFact apparently don't realize that linking to a closely parallel fact check with a different rating exposes a problem of inconsistency.

Inconsistency isn't bias!

By itself, inconsistency is not bias.  But patterns of inconsistency may provide evidence of bias.  We have that sort of pattern in PolitiFact's ratings of differences in pay by gender.

We can measure by tracking the frequency with which stories either favor one political party over another or cause harm to one party more often than to another.  My co-editor at PFB, Jeff D, points out that Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney made a claim about differences in pay by gender during the 2012 election.  Romney noted that the equal pay candidate, President Obama, was paying male White House employees more than the female employees.  PolitiFact found that Romney was right.  And rated the claim "Half True":

In the broadest sense, the Romney campaign is on solid ground when it says that "women in Barack Obama's White House are earning less than men." But the closer you look at the data, the less striking this conclusion becomes.
 
...The statement is accurate but needs clarification or additional information, so we rate it Half True.

"The statement is accurate but needs clarification or additional information," so PolitiFact rates it "Half True."  There's just one problem.  That's the definition PolitiFact gives for "Mostly True":

MOSTLY TRUE – The statement is accurate but needs clarification or additional information.

Even aside from that PolitiFact blunder that somehow escaped the notice of layers of editors, we see a pattern of partisan inconsistency.

Romney's statement, as Jeff points out, avoids false precision.  Romney simply says men get paid more than the women at the White House.  It's very hard to argue that Romney's statement is in any way more misleading than any of the "77 cent" claims.  Indeed, it's hard to argue that Romney misled any more than did the National Women's Law Center with its claim that every state has a gender wage gap.  PolitiFact Georgia rated that claim "True."  PolitiFact simply doesn't provide reasoning that would distinguish one rating from another in this similar set of claims.

Whether the correct rating is "Mostly True" or "Half True," the Republicans draw the short straw with PolitiFact in comparison to Democrats.



Afters

Here's the list of similar gender gap stories, followed by two stories where claimants used the 77 cent figure claiming it's the difference where men and women do the same work.

Diana DeGette says women earn 77 cents for every dollar earned by a man
"Mostly True"

R.I. Treasurer Gina Raimondo repeats oft-quoted, but misleading, statistic in equal pay debate
"Half True"

Rep. Marcia Fudge cites wage gap between Ohio women and men
"Mostly True"

Gender wage gap claim needs more context
"Half True"

Tim Kaine says Virginia women earn 79 cents to every $1 made by men
"Mostly True"

[National Women's Law Center] Is there a gender wage gap in every state?
"True"

Mitt Romney says women White House employees earn less than men under Barack Obama
"Half True"

Same job, same work

U.S. Rep. David Cicilline says women earn only 77 percent of what men earn in the same job
"Mostly False"

Barack Obama ad says women are paid "77 cents on the dollar for doing the same work as men"
"Mostly False"

PolitiFact in Mathmagic Land

A reader pointed us to yet another marvelous example that helps show how PolitiFact applies an irregular set of standards.

PolitiFact Georgia investigated Democrat state senator Vincent Fort's charge that Gov. Nathan Deal, a Republican, has appointed blacks to government positions less than 3 percent of the time.  PolitiFact said the actual number was a little over 7 percent.  So the claim was only "Half True":

The senator’s overarching claim that Deal has appointed a relatively low percentage of minorities has merit. But he was wrong by a handful of percentage points. It was based on an incomplete sampling of Deal’s total appointees.

We rate the claim Half True.

The lawmaker, state senator Vincent Fort,  received a "Half True" because of the truth of his underlying point, that the percentage of black appointees was low.  And he was wrong by "only a handful of percentage points."

Compare the treatment Fort received to Grover Norquist's fate at the hands of PolitiFact Virginia back in February.  Norquist said Virginia uses less than 1 percent of its budget surplus on roads.  The actual number was about 7 percent, so Norquist was off by a handful and committed an error of about 86 percent.  Compare that to Fort's error of about 43 percent.  Norquist's rating from PolitiFact Virginia?  "False."  Norquist received no credit at all for an accurate underlying argument that Virginia doesn't spend much of its budget surplus on roads.

Perhaps Fort could claim Deal has appointed zero blacks and still get a "Half True" from PolitiFact because of the accuracy of his same underlying point.  There's no way to know based on PolitiFact's grading system.  It's all up to the subjective impressions of PolitiFact's star chambers.

It's a crazy way to fact check.  Matt Bryant scores a touchdown!  No, it was just a field goal. Half True.


Jeff Adds:

It's hard to avoid the reality that PolitiFact is an editorial site with articles like this. The final rating is based on the editors' arbitrary standard of however much a "handful" is. Not to mention that Fort named a specific figure, 3 percent, that was unarguably wrong. Whether or not Fort's underlying argument is a good one is clearly the stuff of an editorial. His figures were incorrect, and a fact check, by definition, should be limited to that.

Then again, maybe they cut Fort some slack because they assumed he was citing figures from memory?

Media Trackers: "Arbitrary PolitiFact Opinion Defends DPI, Liberal Bias"

PolitiFact's founding editor Bill Adair may be moving on to Duke University, but as the watchdogs at Media Trackers help show, the remaining editors stand ready to continue Adair's legacy of lamely responding to criticism.

Brian Sikma of Media Trackers pressed PolitiFact Wisconsin editor Greg Borowski for the justification of a fact check of conservative columnist George Will.

Sikma identified a key problem with the rating:

PolitiFact insists that the reason Will is wrong is because DPI merely made the flyers and materials available to educators, and DPI never specifically told students what to do. But is it possible to promote something to educators and expect for that to not be potentially, either overtly or covertly, promoted to the students of those educators?

 Sikma followed up by trying to grill Borowski:

Asked why they rated Will’s statement the way they did, PolitiFact Wisconsin insisted that they did not give Will a “False” rating, only a “Mostly False.” Greg Borowski, editor of PolitiFact Wisconsin, which is housed at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, pointed out that the definition of a “Mostly False” rating is “The statement contains an element of truth but ignores critical facts that would give a different impression.”

Asked how Will’s statement, which was also true, didn’t at least merit a “Mostly True” rating, Borowski replied, “I’m not going to be drawn into your little game here.”

 Borowski refuses to let Sikma draw him into the "game" of specifically justifying a PolitiFact rating.

Seriously, how is that a game?  PolitiFact supposedly exists to make these ratings and help readers decide whether they agree with the rating.

Sikma's approach exposes the fact that PolitiFact's "Truth-O-Meter" only plays at objectivity.  If a statement is false, PolitiFact can still justify a rating of "Mostly False" or higher.  If a statement is true, PolitiFact can still find ways to rate it "False" or even "Pants on Fire."  PolitiFact does this by inconsistently applying its set of standards.  The standards assist in the process by including few objective criteria on which to justify ratings.  Subjective and arbitrary ratings result, which may explain why PolitiFact editors get a bit cagey when pressed to justify a rating.


Jeff adds: Sikma highlights a longstanding gripe of ours. PolitiFact likes to present itself as answering some noble journalistic cause and providing an unbiased and objective view. But the reality is their ratings are ordinary commentary typical of any editorial page. There's simply nothing unique about PolitiFact's op-ed's ratings, save for the gimmicky Truth-O-Meter graphic and the conceit that they're immune to partisanship.

Borowski's sensitivity to being questioned betrays the joke. Facts, by definition, are non-partisan. But PolitiFact can't settle for simply publishing facts. That's why Romney's truth that Jeeps will be built in China becomes a Lie of the Year after PolitiFact expounds on what they think Romney was implying. Their Truth-O-Meter and hilariously ambiguous ratings definitions allow the editors to apply their own bias to tell you what the facts mean.

That's not fact-checking. That's political commentary. Sikma touched the right nerve with Borowski, and judging by the snide response it was a sensitive one.



Edit 4-22-13: Corrected spelling of "Sikma" in Jeff adds section