Not a Lot of Reader Confusion XII

We say that PolitiFact's graphs and charts, including its PunditFact collections of ratings for news networks, routinely mislead readers. But PolitiFact Editor Angie Drobnic Holan says there isn't much reader confusion.

Today on its Facebook Page, PolitiFact continued its custom of highlighting one of its politician "report cards."

In keeping with our expectation that PolitiFact's report cards mislead the PolitiFact audience, we found the following:

We're not making the commenters impossible to verify, but we're blacking out the names and emphasizing that nobody should harass these people over their comments in any way. Somebody already pointed out a problem with their view, so there's not even a need to do that. Just leave it alone and allow this to stand as the latest proof that PolitiFact has its head in the sand over the way its charts mislead its audience. That's using the charitable assumption that PolitiFact isn't deliberately deceiving its audience.

As we have endlessly pointed out, the non-scientific method PolitiFact uses to sample the universe of political claims make statements about the overall percentages of false statements unreliable.

PolitiFact knows this but declines to make it clear to readers with the use of a consistent disclaimer.

The type of response we captured above happens routinely.


Correction May 3, 2019: We did XI twice! Fixed the title to reflect the more accurate count.