Last week PolitiFact issued a completely ridiculous "Mostly False" rating on President Trump's tweet claiming Obamacare had resulted in millions of Americans having fewer health insurance options.
Many, including Jeff and me, pointed out the absurdity on Twitter. But we did not get around to writing it up for the blog.
Ben Shapiro saves us the trouble by summarizing PolitiFact's failure neatly in a short YouTube video.
Enjoy.
Good work, Ben Shapiro.
We expected PolitiFact to walk this one back or at least try to answer the wave of criticism the ruling received. PolitiFact elected to do neither, apparently convinced that its airtight reasoning successfully weathered all the criticism it received.
In other words, industrial strength bubble.
Showing posts with label Ben Shapiro. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Ben Shapiro. Show all posts
Wednesday, June 28, 2017
Thursday, November 6, 2014
PunditFact PolitiFail on Ben Shapiro, with PolitiMath
On Nov. 6, 2014 PunditFact provided yet another example why the various iterations of PolitiFact do not deserve serious consideration as fact checkers (we'll refer to PolitiFact writers as bloggers and the "fact check" stories as blogs from here on out as a considered display of disrespect).
PunditFact reviewed a claim by Truth Revolt's Ben Shapiro that a majority of Muslims are radical. PunditFact ruled Shapiro's claim "False" based on the idea that Shapiro's definition of "radical" and the numbers used to justify his claim were, according to PunditFact, "almost meaningless."
Lost on PunditFact was the inherent difficulty of ruling "False" something that's almost meaningless. Definite meanings lend themselves to verification or falsification. Fuzzy meanings defy those tests.
PunditFact's blog was literally filled with laughable errors, but we'll just focus on three for the sake of brevity.
First, PunditFact faults Shapiro for his broad definition of "radical," but Shapiro explains very clearly what he's up to in the video where he made the claim. There's no attempt to mislead the viewer and no excuse to misinterpret Shapiro's purpose.
Second, PunditFact engages in its own misdirection of its readers. In PunditFact's blog, it reports how Muslims "favor sharia." Pew Research explains clearly what that means: Favoring sharia means favoring sharia as official state law. PunditFact never mentions what Pew Research means by "favor sharia."
Do liberals think marrying church and state is radical? You betcha. Was PunditFact deliberately trying to downplay that angle? Or was the reporting just that bad? Either way, PunditFact provides a disservice to its readers.
Third, PunditFact fails to note that Shapiro could easily have increased the number of radicalized Muslims in his count. He drew his totals from a limited set of nations for which Pew Research had collected data. Shapiro points this out near the end of the video, but it PunditFact either didn't notice or else determined its readers did not need to know.
PunditFact used what it calls a "reasonable" method of counting radical Muslims to supposedly show how Shapiro engaged in cherry-picking. We've pointed out at least two ways PunditFact erred in its methods, but for the sake of PolitiMath we'll assume PunditFact created an apt comparison between its "reasonable" method and Shapiro's alleged cherry-picking.
Shapiro counted 680 million radical Muslims. PunditFact counted 181.8 million. We rounded both numbers off slightly.
Taking PunditFact's 181.8 million as the baseline, Shapiro exaggerated the number of radical Muslims by 274 percent. That may seem like a big enough exaggeration to warrant a "False" rating. But it's easy to forget that the bloggers at PunditFact gave Cokie Roberts a "Half True" for a claim exaggerated by about 9,000 percent. PunditFact detected a valid underlying argument from Roberts. Apparently Ben Shapiro has no valid underlying argument that there are plenty of Muslims around who hold religious views that meet a broad definition of "radical."
Why?
Liberal bias is as likely an explanation as any.
Addendum:
Shapiro makes some of the same points we make with his own response to PunditFact.
PunditFact reviewed a claim by Truth Revolt's Ben Shapiro that a majority of Muslims are radical. PunditFact ruled Shapiro's claim "False" based on the idea that Shapiro's definition of "radical" and the numbers used to justify his claim were, according to PunditFact, "almost meaningless."
Lost on PunditFact was the inherent difficulty of ruling "False" something that's almost meaningless. Definite meanings lend themselves to verification or falsification. Fuzzy meanings defy those tests.
PunditFact's blog was literally filled with laughable errors, but we'll just focus on three for the sake of brevity.
First, PunditFact faults Shapiro for his broad definition of "radical," but Shapiro explains very clearly what he's up to in the video where he made the claim. There's no attempt to mislead the viewer and no excuse to misinterpret Shapiro's purpose.
Second, PunditFact engages in its own misdirection of its readers. In PunditFact's blog, it reports how Muslims "favor sharia." Pew Research explains clearly what that means: Favoring sharia means favoring sharia as official state law. PunditFact never mentions what Pew Research means by "favor sharia."
Do liberals think marrying church and state is radical? You betcha. Was PunditFact deliberately trying to downplay that angle? Or was the reporting just that bad? Either way, PunditFact provides a disservice to its readers.
Third, PunditFact fails to note that Shapiro could easily have increased the number of radicalized Muslims in his count. He drew his totals from a limited set of nations for which Pew Research had collected data. Shapiro points this out near the end of the video, but it PunditFact either didn't notice or else determined its readers did not need to know.
PolitiMath
PunditFact used what it calls a "reasonable" method of counting radical Muslims to supposedly show how Shapiro engaged in cherry-picking. We've pointed out at least two ways PunditFact erred in its methods, but for the sake of PolitiMath we'll assume PunditFact created an apt comparison between its "reasonable" method and Shapiro's alleged cherry-picking.
Shapiro counted 680 million radical Muslims. PunditFact counted 181.8 million. We rounded both numbers off slightly.
Taking PunditFact's 181.8 million as the baseline, Shapiro exaggerated the number of radical Muslims by 274 percent. That may seem like a big enough exaggeration to warrant a "False" rating. But it's easy to forget that the bloggers at PunditFact gave Cokie Roberts a "Half True" for a claim exaggerated by about 9,000 percent. PunditFact detected a valid underlying argument from Roberts. Apparently Ben Shapiro has no valid underlying argument that there are plenty of Muslims around who hold religious views that meet a broad definition of "radical."
Why?
Liberal bias is as likely an explanation as any.
Addendum:
Shapiro makes some of the same points we make with his own response to PunditFact.
Friday, September 14, 2012
Ben Shapiro: "Politifact Cites Three Liberal 'Apology Experts' to Condemn Romney"
Ben Shapiro, writing for Breitbart.com's Big Peace, pre-emptively steals my thunder on PolitiFact's ridiculous story on Mitt Romney and the statement from the American embassy in Libya.
What did Gardiner have to say in PolitiFact's original story? Here it is:
In the latest apology for Obama, PolitiFact's three experts make a show of distinguishing between condemnation and apology. But that approach obscures a potential relationship between condemnation and apology.
One cannot condemn an entity and apologize for that same entity at the same time with the same statement. Those aims work against each other. But very clearly, one can easily work a condemnation into an apology: "My son was bad, bad, bad, bad, bad--a thousand times bad for breaking your window, Mrs. Jones."
In the above example we have an apology and a condemnation in the same sentence. It works because the apology is directed at one entity (Mrs. Jones) while the condemnation is directed at a third party (the son). By throwing a natural ally under the bus for breaking the window, the condemner sends a clear implicit message of regret to the offended party, Mrs. Smith.
It's important to emphasize the role of an apology in both personal and international relations: An apology is an attempt to smooth things over with the offended party. Condemning the breaking of the window sends a message to Mrs. Jones that something will be done to the window breaker to help balance the scales of justice. Absent that implication, condemning the window-breaker isn't likely to sooth Mrs. Jones' ire.
In the case of the Libyan embassy, embassy officials clearly released the statement with the aim of defusing anger at the United States. One can claim that it was a condemnation rather than an apology, but that's obfuscation.
It was a classic apology, delivered by implicit means.
Shapiro:
Just when you think Politifact can’t make any more of a mockery of itself than it already has – over and over and over and over again – they wade into the breach today on foreign policy. More specifically, they took issue with Mitt Romney’s statement today that “I think it’s a terrible course for America to stand in apology for our values.”PolitiFact has a history of denying that things Mitt Romney says are apologies are, in fact, apologies. Shapiro has fun with PolitiFact's method of undercutting Romney in this case:
So, what did Politifact have to say? They interviewed three “apology experts.” Seriously. First, they interviewed Professor John Murphy, of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, who said it wasn’t an apology because “the statement does not use the word ‘apology’ or ‘apologize’ and does not use any synonym for that word.” Second, they interviewed Lauren Bloom, “an attorney and business consultant who wrote The Art of the Apology.” What did she say? Romney’s “once again allowing his emotional allergy to apology to interfere with his judgment.” Finally, they interviewed Professor Rhoda E. Howard-Hassman, who said the statement was “not an apology.”But is that PolitiFact's fault? PolitiFact tried to contact a fourth expert who did not respond. By looking at the earlier fact checks we can confirm that the expert was conservative foreign policy analyst Nile Gardiner of the Heritage Foundation.
What did Gardiner have to say in PolitiFact's original story? Here it is:
Nile Gardiner, a foreign policy analyst with the the conservative Heritage Foundation, said Obama is definitely apologizing, and it's not good. He co-wrote the Heritage analysis, "Barack Obama's Top 10 Apologies: How the President Has Humiliated a Superpower."As I noted in an earlier analysis, PolitiFact completely discounted Gardiner's statement in ruling Romney "Pants on Fire" for saying Mr. Obama went on an apology tour. PolitiFact did not explain its reasons for discounting Gardiner's expertise. If partisanship was a problem then we should expect PolitiFact to find an entirely new set of experts. Choosing the expert opinion of three liberals over one conservative looks simply like an expression of partisan bias by the fact checker when unaccompanied by a solid rationale.
"Apologizing for your own country projects an image of weakness before both allies and enemies," Gardiner said. "It sends a very clear signal that the U.S. is to blame for some major developments on the world stage. This can be used to the advanage of those who wish to undermine American global leadership."
He noted that Obama tends to be most apologetic about how the U.S. has fought terrorism and its approach to the Iraq war. "There is a very strong partisan element to his apologies, but the biggest driving factor is Obama's personal belief that the U.S. is not an exceptional, uniquely great nation," he said.
In the latest apology for Obama, PolitiFact's three experts make a show of distinguishing between condemnation and apology. But that approach obscures a potential relationship between condemnation and apology.
One cannot condemn an entity and apologize for that same entity at the same time with the same statement. Those aims work against each other. But very clearly, one can easily work a condemnation into an apology: "My son was bad, bad, bad, bad, bad--a thousand times bad for breaking your window, Mrs. Jones."
In the above example we have an apology and a condemnation in the same sentence. It works because the apology is directed at one entity (Mrs. Jones) while the condemnation is directed at a third party (the son). By throwing a natural ally under the bus for breaking the window, the condemner sends a clear implicit message of regret to the offended party, Mrs. Smith.
It's important to emphasize the role of an apology in both personal and international relations: An apology is an attempt to smooth things over with the offended party. Condemning the breaking of the window sends a message to Mrs. Jones that something will be done to the window breaker to help balance the scales of justice. Absent that implication, condemning the window-breaker isn't likely to sooth Mrs. Jones' ire.
In the case of the Libyan embassy, embassy officials clearly released the statement with the aim of defusing anger at the United States. One can claim that it was a condemnation rather than an apology, but that's obfuscation.
It was a classic apology, delivered by implicit means.
***
Shapiro's sharp, pithy and to the point. Visit Big Peace and read the whole of his take.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)