Monday, November 18, 2013

PolitiFact: Pay no attention to the experts behind the curtain!

Over at my other project, Zebra Fact Check, I just finished a review of a research paper that defended the accuracy of the mainstream fact checkers partly because they tend to agree with each other.

I was thinking "How can they overlook the many cases where PolitiFact disagrees with itself?"

And moments ago, we have another case in point:
PolitiFact previously reviewed Obama’s claim that "our deficits are falling at the fastest rate in 60 years" and rated it True.

The deficit was 10.1 percent of GDP in 2009, but fell in 2012 to 7 percent -- a decline of 3.1 percentage points. The period between 1946 and 1949, when the deficit as a percentage of GDP fell 7.4 percentage points, produced the only bigger decline.

Experts have criticized Obama’s point as misleading.
PolitiFact's "Principles" page lists its criteria for choosing statements to rate. One of them is "Is the statement leaving a particular impression that may be misleading?"

PolitiFact rated President Obama "True" for a statement experts found misleading.

Perfect.



Note:  Zebra Fact Check also found the statement misleading.

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