tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-61613682431891082272024-02-29T09:23:00.328-08:00PolitiFact BiasThe best evidences showing PolitiFact's liberal slant.Bryan Whitehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07608604859044029293noreply@blogger.comBlogger955125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6161368243189108227.post-18701366513928735072024-02-29T09:13:00.000-08:002024-02-29T09:22:27.355-08:00PolitiFact's "no spin" lie Apparently PolitiFact's hot new method for getting people to trust their work is to lie to them.I see it at the top of every fact check these days. PolitiFact posts a summary of its fact check near the top of the story, and at the bottom of that summary lets readers know "No spin, just facts you can trust.""No spin."Really?That howler accompanied a PolitiFact fact check I ran across today, Bryan Whitehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07608604859044029293noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6161368243189108227.post-70199914921624156362024-02-22T11:50:00.000-08:002024-02-22T11:50:39.553-08:00PolitiFact's how-to primer on improperly fact-checking an analogyThere's so much wrong with this Feb. 22, 2024 PolitiFact fact check that I'm bound to go way beyond the scope of the title.How To Wrongly Fact Check an AnalogyPolitiFact's summary/quotation of Trump's statement counts as reasonably accurate. He drew an analogy between the fine imposed in the New York fraud case to the political persecution of Alexei A. Navalny, who notably opposed Vladimir Putin Bryan Whitehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07608604859044029293noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6161368243189108227.post-71744913913607633872024-02-08T05:30:00.000-08:002024-02-08T05:30:00.150-08:00The "Pants on Fire" bias study updated through 2023 We have updated our "Pants on Fire" bias study with data from 2023.What is it? We use a spreadsheet to track all "False" and "Pants on Fire" ratings given to partisan Republicans or Democrats whether candidate, officeholder or appointed administration official plus party officials or organizations. We then calculate the percentage of false ("False" plus "Pants on Fire") ratings given the "Bryan Whitehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07608604859044029293noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6161368243189108227.post-59159093822890010312024-01-20T16:13:00.000-08:002024-01-20T16:15:55.884-08:00PolitiFact Wisconsin, Glenn Grothman and uncharitable interpretation The principle of charitable interpretation is pretty simple. It consists of offering a claim the interpretation that best favors the speaker or writer without undue acrobatics.Mainstream media fact checkers, when not reviewing the claims of Democrats, often experience difficulty with the concept. And that brings us to PolitiFact Wisconsin and Wisconsin Republican Glenn Grothman.Grothman's Bryan Whitehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07608604859044029293noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6161368243189108227.post-84375973178269720612023-12-10T09:05:00.000-08:002023-12-10T09:05:10.351-08:00Example Umpteen Showing How PolitiFact Goes Easier on DemocratsWe only wish we had the time and money needed to document as much as 10 percent of PolitiFact's flawed and biased work.We've documented a number of times PolitiFact's penchant for ignoring its central principle for grading numbers claims. PolitiFact's founding editor Bill Adair declared that the most important part of a numbers claim is its underlying point. But PolitiFact will ignore the Bryan Whitehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07608604859044029293noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6161368243189108227.post-86911278245161114992023-11-10T10:29:00.002-08:002023-11-10T10:29:45.092-08:00Facebook PerfidyThis week I have it from PolitiFact Bias co-founder Jeff D. that Facebook accepted my protest of its move unpublishing the PolitiFact Bias page on Facebook.Facebook unpublished our page back in April of 2021.I appealed the decision near the time it was made. Our FB page always had a disclaimer in the description distinguishing us completely from PolitiFact and stating that we criticize PolitiFactBryan Whitehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07608604859044029293noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6161368243189108227.post-44480739890659691402023-09-26T10:01:00.000-07:002023-09-26T10:01:19.502-07:00PolitiFact aids President Biden's post hoc ergo propter hoc deception What can PolitiFact do to help President Biden?BOOM!:"But wait," our liberal or progressive friends might object. "That's just PolitiFact reporting the facts. There's no pro-Biden bias there."On the contrary! And it's completely obvious how PolitiFact favored Biden, particularly in comparison to parallel fact checks of Republicans (and even some other Democrats).Post Hoc Ergo Propter Bryan Whitehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07608604859044029293noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6161368243189108227.post-803224216627242072023-06-20T04:30:00.001-07:002023-06-20T04:30:00.150-07:00Married gays thrown out of restaurants? PolitiFact biased againQuite a few conservative outlets hit the story of PolitiFact defending President Biden's gays thrown out of restaurants claim:Newsbusters, Infowars, and Breitbart (among others) ran stories on PolitiFact's ruling. The Big Issue: InconsistencyWe did not find the biggest issue dealt with in those stories. PolitiFact used a totally different approach with Biden's claim than it has used in otherBryan Whitehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07608604859044029293noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6161368243189108227.post-27356364080658643762023-06-13T09:07:00.001-07:002023-06-13T09:07:05.931-07:00Magical PolitiFact fact-checking defies context, turns ambiguity into specificity When is a fact check not a fact check?A fact check isn't a fact check when it takes an ambiguous claim and checks it as though it's specific.Case in point (red X added):So, twitterers said the Missouri attorney general has a website "where people can report trans individuals and the people that help them."Report them for what? Being trans individuals? As for the people that "help themBryan Whitehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07608604859044029293noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6161368243189108227.post-67114284077449300932023-06-09T07:20:00.003-07:002023-06-09T07:25:50.411-07:00PolitiFact vs the strawman version of Nikki Haley's claim about teen girls and suicide Strawmen are always in season at PolitiFact, particularly when a Republican speaks.Broken quotations always count as a red flag worth investigating. PolitiFact's is especially worth investigating because the key part of the blurb doesn't come from Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley: "is a reason why."So, did Haley say it was a reason?Here's the relevant part of CNN's transcript Bryan Whitehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07608604859044029293noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6161368243189108227.post-4814396502848518702023-06-08T10:29:00.006-07:002023-06-22T07:52:50.603-07:00Have politicians discovered asbestos pants? (Update/Correction)We think PolitiFact's "Truth-O-Meter" rating system offers ample evidence of PolitiFact's bias.Why?1) It's an admittedly subjective rating system.2) Rating patterns differ widely at different franchises.3) Fundamentally similar fact checks may conclude with very different ratings.And to those three reasons we add a fourth, newly ascendant in the data we collect:4) "Pants on Fire" seems to be Bryan Whitehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07608604859044029293noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6161368243189108227.post-78636696164335894882023-01-02T08:05:00.001-08:002023-01-02T08:07:02.509-08:00PolitiFact's "Pants on Fire" bias in 2022Back in 2012, we started an ongoing study of PolitiFact's bias particular to its decisions on "False" versus "Pants on Fire" ratings, given that the difference counts to all appearances as "entirely subjective."This post updates that research with observations about 2022.The "Pants on Fire" Bias PolitiFact has never described an objective grounds for deciding between a "False" rating and a "PantsBryan Whitehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07608604859044029293noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6161368243189108227.post-89431683370857874892022-12-19T10:32:00.004-08:002022-12-19T10:36:10.697-08:00PolitiFact's gender pay gap shenanigans continue (2022 edition)PolitiFact has completed quite a few fact checks touching the gender wage gap. And a Dec. 16, 2022 item from PolitiFact Wisconsin carries on PolitiFact's rich tradition of left-leaning inconsistency.As we have noted here and at Zebra Fact Check, PolitiFact wanders all over the map on gender pay gap claims. Here's the central thing to remember, for those seeking consistency: The raw gender wage Bryan Whitehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07608604859044029293noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6161368243189108227.post-16610311422691780952022-12-01T03:00:00.001-08:002022-12-01T03:00:00.228-08:00More PedantiFact: PolitiFact vs. Kevin McCarthy Fact checkers supposedly don't fact check opinions.PolitiFact fact checks opinions. Real Clear Politics has kept a study going looking at how often a set of top fact checkers rate opinions or predictions (among other things). PolitiFact has paced the group.We expect Real Clear Politics will get around to adding this Nov. 30, 2022 PolitiFact fact check to the list: Why do we think Bryan Whitehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07608604859044029293noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6161368243189108227.post-4840483111129101962022-11-11T11:04:00.001-08:002022-11-11T11:04:42.441-08:00Glenn Youngkin and PolitiPedant VirginiaPolitiFact's penchant for pedantry justly earns it the derisive nickname "PolitiPedant."Ready for another example? Let's go!Youngkin claimed he won cities no Republican had won before in Virginia. Obviously a fact checker needs to find a reasonable definition of "city" to fact check Youngkin's claim.PolitiFact's method credits the state of Virginia with 38 cities. Does that seem low? There's Bryan Whitehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07608604859044029293noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6161368243189108227.post-34532181396372640462022-11-04T12:06:00.000-07:002022-11-04T12:06:06.952-07:00Narrative-shepherding instead of fact-checking for America as stolen landOne has to hand it to PolitiFact's Yacob Reyes. Earlier this year, Reyes turned a mostly unoccupied barrier island into the whole of Lee County. Now, Reyes turns bad-faith treaties affecting a limited number of American lands into support for the narrative of the United States (plus other modern American nations north and south) consisting of stolen land.Behold:PolitiFact's left-wing editorial Bryan Whitehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07608604859044029293noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6161368243189108227.post-77914648660579200522022-11-04T09:46:00.000-07:002022-11-04T09:46:01.925-07:00Research note: PolitiFact's 'Pants on Fire' bias through October 2022We continue to update our research project examining PolitiFact's bias in applying its "Pants on Fire" rating.The project notes that the difference between "False" and "Pants on Fire" ratings on PolitiFact's "Truth-O-Meter" counts as subjective. "False" statements are untrue, while "Pants on Fire" statements are untrue and "ridiculous." "Ridiculous" is a subjective judgment on its face, and Bryan Whitehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07608604859044029293noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6161368243189108227.post-57637066119559825372022-09-22T01:30:00.001-07:002022-09-22T01:30:00.219-07:00PolitiSpin: Biden says he cut the debt by $1.5 trillion? Half True!We kiddeth not when we call PolitiFact a collection of liberal bloggers posing as non-partisan fact checkers.U.S. debt hasn't gone down at all under Biden, as PolitiFact admits. PolitiFact cited a September 2022 estimate saying the deficit, not the debt, would decrease by about $1.7 trillion compared to FY2021, but that leaves a deficit of almost $1 trillion that will increase the debt by that Bryan Whitehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07608604859044029293noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6161368243189108227.post-66929609425424519352022-09-09T12:45:00.002-07:002022-09-09T12:45:45.498-07:00PolitiFact vs Your Lyin' Eyes on the immigration invasionOn Sept. 6, 2022 PolitiFact published an item titled "A surprising number of Americans believe these false claims about immigrants. Here are the facts."
We have a favorite among the supposedly false claims believed by a surprising number of Americans."There is no invasion at the southern border"No invasion at the southern border? Tell us more, PolitiFact.More than half of Americans surveyed by Bryan Whitehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07608604859044029293noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6161368243189108227.post-3591079359920529572022-07-12T11:45:00.000-07:002022-07-12T11:45:08.895-07:00Stanley Kurtz/National Review: "PolitiFact’s Failed Attack on DeSantis, over Civics Education"With less time to devote to this website, we don't often highlight outside work. But that was actually our aim when we started out!This article in National Review by Stanley Kurtz does a terrific job rebutting PolitiFact's latest screed targeting Governor Ron DeSantis of Florida.Late last Friday, PolitiFact issued
a “fact check” claiming that Florida governor Ron DeSantis’s recent
swipe againstBryan Whitehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07608604859044029293noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6161368243189108227.post-91106311168054562452022-07-03T09:47:00.000-07:002022-07-03T09:47:05.544-07:00PolitiFact: How can we rig this abortion fact check to help President Biden? Part IIIWe thought we were done with the series examining PolitiFact's efforts to help President Joe Biden on an abortion claim. Then we saw the video version of PolitiFact's fact check.PolitiFact released the video after the "clarification" it performed after a Zebra Fact Check (Bryan's fact-checking website) correction request.Video VersionFor review, Mr. Biden said the United States Supreme Court had Bryan Whitehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07608604859044029293noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6161368243189108227.post-25759537410740360592022-06-28T10:07:00.001-07:002022-06-28T10:07:28.175-07:00PolitiFact: How can we rig this abortion fact check to help President Biden? Part IILo and behold, PolitiFact made changes to the fact check we critiqued in our previous post.Recall that we lodged three main criticisms of PolitiFact's "Mostly True" confirmation of President Biden's claim the Supreme Court's Dobbs decision made the United States an outlier among developed nations.PolitiFact cherry-picked its pool of "developed nations."It misidentified "Great Britain" as a memberBryan Whitehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07608604859044029293noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6161368243189108227.post-24178905737446855602022-06-25T10:52:00.000-07:002022-06-25T10:52:11.707-07:00PolitiFact: How can we rig this abortion fact check to help President Biden?Day by day, it's amazing to watch the kind of material PolitiFact publishes as supposedly "not biased" fact-checking.From yesterday, June 24, we have this (red X added):In what respect was President Biden claiming the United States counts as an outlier among "developed nations"? Here's how PolitiFact presented the president's statement:"With this decision, the conservative majority of the SupremeBryan Whitehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07608604859044029293noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6161368243189108227.post-13100692720629661242022-06-14T09:40:00.000-07:002022-06-14T09:40:32.860-07:00PolitiFact issues another pathetic appeal for donationsThe pressure PolitiFact feels to raise money from individual donors has resulted in a distinct story genre. PolitiFact's lying "PolitiFact is not biased" article from 2018 serves as a fine example, with PolitiFact skirting the facts about itself to sell its biased fact-checking to would be donors.In 2022, PolitiFact looked to do whiny Taylor Lorenz one better with its mewling "PolitiFact Bryan Whitehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07608604859044029293noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6161368243189108227.post-66821467088977359702022-06-12T09:39:00.000-07:002022-06-12T09:39:02.399-07:00Enter Strawman: PolitiFact uses interpretive follies to downgrade Republican claimPolitiFact routinely applies uncharitable interpretation to reach nonsensical conclusions with its trademarked "Truth-O-Meter" ratings. Rep. Glenn Grothman (R-Wisc.) received that treatment from PolitiFact Wisconsin on June 10, 2022.Grothman said the proposed loan forgiveness plan would primarily benefit the wealthy. And he went on to emphasize the program occurs while low income Americans Bryan Whitehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07608604859044029293noreply@blogger.com0