Did PolitiFact do Internet research in the 3rd century?

In a Feb. 9, 2016 fact check of Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders, PolitiFact twice claimed its research took place in the 3rd century.

• "Best College Reviews, "8 colleges where students attend for free," Accessed Feb. 8, 206"
• "Interview, Jeffrey D. Marshall, University of Vermont director of research collections, Feb. 8, 206"

PolitiFact's source list shows that the bulk of writer Amy Sherman's research was done in February 2016. But on two occasions Sherman evidently went back in time about 1,800 years to do her research, both times apparently representing Internet research.

But seriously, why are we getting on PolitiFact's case over a pair of typographical errors?

That's simple. This is a test of PolitiFact's communications with its critics.

We contacted PolitiFact director Aaron Sharockman about messages we sent to PolitiFact editor Angie Drobnic Holan and PolitiFact Colorado writer Alan Gathright. We pointed out to Holan and Gathright that a fact check they produced skipped a critical step or two. The normal response from Holan to our criticisms, going back years, is silence. Gathright's new to PolitiFact, via the new Colorado franchise, so this was our first attempt to contact him.

Our message to Sharockman was sent following a message under the same heading forwarding to him our attempts to contact Holan and Gathright.

Sharockman recently used Twitter to express disdain at a critic who failed to contact PolitiFact before publishing a criticism:

Hah! How many times have you have asked for our comment before writing about us? https://t.co/kUxkZOWJxJ

— Aaron Sharockman (@asharock) February 8, 2016

Over the years, we've often attempted to obtain comment from PolitiFact about our criticisms. PolitiFact's favored response, by far, is none. In fairness to Sharockman, he's probably the easiest PolitiFact figure to draw out for a response. But Sharockman tends not to provide detailed responses, and even if he did we don't see how that excuses the rest of the PolitiFact crew.

Academic Lucas Graves (former FactCheck.org and PolitiFact guest worker, left-leaning) addressed the way fact checkers reply to critics in the exhaustive overview of fact-checking he produced as his doctoral dissertation at Columbia University (bold emphasis added):

Fact-checkers anticipate criticism and develop reflexes for trying to defuse it. “We’re going to make the best calls we can, in a pretty gutsy form of journalism,” Bill Adair told NPR. “And when we do, I think it’s natural that the people on one side or the other of this very partisan world we live in are going to be unhappy.”  One strategy is to responding [sic] only minimally or in carefully chosen venues, and always asserting their balance, often by showing the criticism they receive from the other side of the spectrum.

We judge that Graves gives a highly accurate account of the strategy PolitiFact uses to address its critics, and we would highlight the "responding only minimally" element of the strategy Graves lays out.

Did PolitiFact do Internet research in the 3rd century?

No. But if PolitiFact fixes the typos in its resource list, then we at least have some evidence our criticism was received. And regarding the criticism we sent to Holan and Gathright, we will have more evidence that criticism was heard and ignored.

We think that's how PolitiFact rolls. Giving good explanations of its work to critics normally just does not count as a high priority.

Dustin Siggins: "Fact-checking the fact-checkers: Did an abortion defunding bill try ‘to redefine rape’?"

Dustin Siggins continues to establish himself as one of the finest critics of the disastrously inept fact-checking outfit "PolitiFact."

Siggins' latest takedown of PolitiFact's hapless liberal bloggers looks at PolitiFact's fact check of the liberal interest group Emily's List, which claimed a Republican legislator had tried to redefine rape.

Newfangled PolitiFact Colorado looked at whether Emily's List was right that another Colorado Republican,  Mike Coffman, voted to redefine rape and found the Emily's List claim "Mostly True":

Emily’s List said that Coffman "co-sponsored a bill to redefine rape." The record shows Coffman did co-sponsor the bill to redefine a ban on federal funding for abortions to exempt "forcible rape." Yet he later voted on the floor for an amended version that had removed the "forcible" modifier from the bill.

How did it come to pass that it's "Mostly True" that redefining a ban on federal funding for abortions redefines rape?

Siggins, writing for LifeSiteNews, placed some focus on that inconsistency:

[PolitiFact Colorado] wrote, "Critics said the 'forcible rape' language could rule out other forms of sexual assault that are considered rape, including statutory rape, attacks where women are drugged or threatened, and date rapes."

Likewise, he quoted Coffman's Democratic opponent, Morgan Carroll, who said, "Rape is about the lack of consent – not the degree of force – and this definition takes us backwards."

However, which "definition" of rape are we talking about? Generally speaking, there are at least two broad definitions of rape – sexual intercourse between two people when one party is unwilling and sexual intercourse between a legal adult and a legal minor (which can be consensual).

Siggins went on to express doubt that having sex with an incapacitated person fails to count as a forcible rape.

We found support for Siggins' skepticism at Justia.com:

Forcible Rape—Rape by Force

Definition: The carnal knowledge of a female forcibly and against her will.

[...]

"Against her will" includes instances in which the victim is incapable of giving consent because of her temporary or permanent mental or physical incapacity (or because of her youth). The ability of the victim to give consent must be a professional determination by the law enforcement agency. The age of the victim, of course, plays a critical role in this determination. Individuals do not mature mentally at the same rate. For example, no 4-year-old is capable of consenting, whereas victims aged 10 or 12 may need to be assessed within the specific circumstances regarding the giving of their consent.

Put simply, the legal definition of "forcible rape" in effect during 2011, when Coffman's bill was debated, included lack of consent.

PolitiFact Colorado cited unnamed "critics" who argued otherwise:

Critics said the "forcible rape" language could rule out other forms of sexual assault that are considered rape, including statutory rape, attacks where women are drugged or threatened, and date rapes.

Does it matter to PolitiFact Colorado whether the "critics" were right? Is it okay to simply assume the anonymous critics raised a plausible and likely problem with the proposed law?

• PolitiFact Colorado neglects to define "forcible rape"
• PolitiFact Colorado offers no evidence it looked into the definition of "forcible rape"
• PolitiFact Colorado cited anonymous "critics" as a key part of its analysis

We think at minimum a neutral fact-checker would take a more detailed look than PolitiFact Colorado did at the definition of "forcible rape."


Afters

We contacted the author and the editor of the PolitiFact Colorado fact check about problems we noted above. We will update this article if we receive any reply.


Correction Feb. 12, 2016: Corrected one instance in which the word "abortion" was mistakenly substituted for "rape".