PolitiFact gives "policy trajectory" a "False" rating

Earlier this week PolitiFact Executive Director Aaron Sharockman said PolitiFact does not rate opinions or predictions.

Also this week, PolitiFact Health Check, the PolitiFact partnership with Kaiser Health News, apparently contradicted Sharockman's claim.

Behold:

If it looks like PolitiFact is fact-checking a prediction, that's because PolitiFact is fact-checking a prediction.

More than one of PolitiFact's pool of four experts apparently saw it exactly that way (bold emphasis added):

But, Adler said, the structure of Trump’s claim — promising what his administration "will" do, rather than commenting on what it has done — leaves open the possibility of taking other steps to keep preexisting condition protections in place.

That’s true, other experts acknowledged. So far, the White House has postponed a legislative push until after the 2020 election — leaving a vacuum if the courts do wipe out the health law.

History shows that PolitiFact will not allow mere expert opinion to stand in the way of the hoped-for narrative. When experts offer opinions that do not fit comfortably with PolitiFact's conclusion, PolitiFact ignores them.

Hilariously, PolitiFact's conclusion uses language strongly suggesting an awareness that it is rating a prediction:

Our ruling

Trump said his administration will "always protect patients with preexisting conditions."

The White House’s policy trajectory does exactly the opposite.

What is "policy trajectory" if it is not a projection of what will happen tomorrow based on Trump administration policy today?

PolitiFact Health Check is not fact-checking Trump. It is rating a pledged policy position. PolitiFact could potentially address such cases with an expansion of its ratings of executive promises ("Trump-O-Meter" etc.).

But this so-called "fact check" makes Sharockman a liar if it isn't corrected somehow.

The unquotable Judith Curry

Judith Curry's Twitter avatar.

A reader tipped us to the fact that climate research expert Judith Curry has posted interview questions she received from PolitiFact's John Kruzel, along with her responses to those questions.

Kruzel solicited Curry's views in the context of fact-checking a statement about carbon dioxide's role in climate change. Kruzel's fact check lists his email interview of Curry in its source list, but the fact check does not quote, paraphrase or summarize Curry's views.

In accordance with its Creative Commons licensing, we present Curry's account of her PolitiFact interview, following the format she used at the blog she hosts, Climate Etc. (we added a bracketed explanation of the IPCC acronym):

On June 20, John Kruzel, the author of the Politifact article, sent me an email:

We’re looking into Energy Secretary Rick Perry’s recent claim that the main cause of climate change is most likely “the ocean waters and this environment that we live in.” We’ve asked the Department of Energy why Perry disagrees with the IPCC  [Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change] that human activity is the main cause of climate change; we’ve received no response so far.

I’d be grateful if you’d consider the following questions:

Questions from Politifact to JC, and JC’s responses:

Do you consider the IPCC the world’s leading authority on climate change and why?
The IPCC is driven by the interests of policy makers, and the IPCC’s conclusions represent a negotiated consensus.  I don’t regard the IPCC framework to be helpful for promoting free and open inquiry and debate about the science of climate change.
 .
Do you agree with the IPCC that effects of man-made greenhouse gas emissions “are extremely likely to have been the dominant cause of the observed warming since the mid-20th century.”
It is possible that humans have been the dominant cause of the recent warming, but we don’t really know how to separate out human causes from natural variability.  The ‘extremely likely’ confidence level is wholly unjustified in my opinion.
 .
How solid is the science behind the conclusion that human activity is the main cause of climate change?
Not very solid, in my opinion.  Until we have a better understanding of long term oscillations in the ocean and indirect solar effects, we can’t draw definitive conclusions about the causes of recent warming.
 .
What is your response to Perry’s statement?
I don’t have a problem with Perry’s statement.  There is no reason for him to be set up as an arbiter of climate science.  He seems clearly committed to a clean environment and research to developing new energy technologies, which is  his job as Secretary of Energy.

JC question:  So what are we to conclude from PolitiFact’s failure to even mention or consider my responses, after explicitly asking for them?

We suggest it's safe to conclude Kruzel had his mind made up on this fact check before contacting his expert sources. Asking experts if they agree the IPCC is the leading authority on climate change qualifies as a classic leading question, and offers a strong indication that the IPCC's leading role in the story was central before Kruzel contacted Curry. The second question counts as another leading question, set up by the first leading question.

It looks like Kruzel was trying to lead the experts toward giving quotations to back what he had already decided to write.

Kruzel's third and fourth questions are fine. A serious fact check could have worked based on those questions alone, dropping the leading questions and Kruzel's/PolitiFact's confident proclamation regarding the IPCC (bold emphasis added):

The world’s leading authority on climate change, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, has concluded that human activity is "extremely likely" to be the main driver of warming since the mid 20th century.

While it’s still possible to find dissenters, scientists around the globe generally agree with this conclusion.

Kruzel might have added: "We actually found one such dissenter without even really trying!"  But since PolitiFact does not publish its email interviews (unlike one transparent fact checker we know of), there's no telling whether PolitiFact found more than one such dissenter in its small pool of expert sources.

Seriously, what is the basis in fact for calling the IPCC "the world's leading authority on climate change"? Such designations stem from popular or expert opinions, don't they? Objective reporting makes such distinctions clear. What Kruzel did was not objective reporting.



Correction June 28, 2017: Belatedly added a hyperlink to the PolitiFact fact check that cites Curry without quoting Curry

PolitiFact says Democrat's statement is misleading and so rates it "True"

It's really a very small wonder that PolitiFact remains so popular with the many Democrats who comment on PolitiFact's Facebook page. PolitiFact is good to Democrats. Often it's hard to see why without seeing the benevolence as a sign of PolitiFact's liberal bias.

Take the case of PolitiFact Texas and Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Julián Castro.

Castro, appearing at the Texas Democratic Party's state convention, implied California's economy was outperforming that of Texas. PolitiFact sourced its quotation of Castro to the Dallas Morning News:

“Today, California is kicking our butt, creating more jobs and more economic growth than Texas,” he said. “Maybe what we need to do is trade in [California] Gov. Jerry Brown for Gov. Greg Abbott and get better results.”

PolitiFact ruled Castro's claim "True," defined as "The statement is accurate and there’s nothing significant missing."

With PolitiFact's help, Democrats like Castro seem to have a knack for saying true things that have nothing significant missing even when something significant is missing.

We don't have to do any digging of our own to find the misleading part of Castro's claim. Tara Sinclair, one of the experts PolitiFact Texas interviewed, points it out:

Tara Sinclair, chief economist for Indeed, a job-posting service, pointed out by email that Texas has long enjoyed a lower unemployment rate--a facet Castro didn’t mention.

(...)

 All in all, Sinclair said by email, "focusing on the total number of people employed is misleading due to the different population sizes of the two states. By both the unemployment rate (a standard measure of labor market health) as well as the employment to population ratio, Texas's labor market actually looks healthier than California's."

This bit of information Castro left out was so unimportant PolitiFact metnioned it again in its conclusion (bold emphasis added):

Castro said that "today," California is "creating more jobs and more economic growth than Texas."

These fightin’ words hold up based on recent jobs growth and relative changes in GDP and personal income. Still (just a tad whiney here) would it hurt to acknowledge that Texas continues to enjoy a lower unemployment rate?

We rate this claim True.

So Castro's statement was misleading, according to the cited expert, falsely suggesting that California's labor market is healthier than Texas' labor market.

Nothing significant was left out?

We've charged that PolitiFact's "Truth-O-Meter" grading system is hopelessly subjective, and this case helps illustrate the point. What is the objective cutoff point between leaving out something significant and leaving out something insignificant? And if PolitiFact finds something insignificant was left out, does it makes sense to point out something insignificant to its readers?

PolitiFact has never publicized any criteria that would show it bases its ratings on objective benchmarks. PolitiFact's "star chamber" of at least three editors decides what is significant and what isn't. By and large, PolitiFact's readers will know nothing about what was discussed by the "star chamber." Nor will PolitiFact's readers know how the editors voted. And here's a fact: Not one single member of PolitiFact's Supreme Court was picked by a Republican president.

That's one way to institutionalize bias ...

More word games at PolitiFact: voucher edition

On June 5, 2016, we reviewed PolitiFact's position, contrary to what economists write in published journals, that Social Security's "pay-as-you-go" financing is not a Ponzi game.

With this post, we'll see that PolitiFact adopts a different approach to the use of words when the term is "voucher."

Surprise! The inconsistency works against Republicans in both cases.

PolitiFact Wisconsin fact-checked a claim by the Democratic Party of Wisconsin that Republican Senator Ron Johnson voted to turn Medicare into a voucher program. PolitiFact Wisconsin rated the claim "Mostly True," ignoring the fact that the plans Johnson voted for involved no vouchers. Vouchers are pieces of paper representing value that will be covered by the government.

PolitiFact Wisconsin's explanation is priceless:

Our colleagues concluded that, although there are technical differences between voucher and premium supports that may matter to health policy professionals, the two definitions have become almost indistinguishable and voucher program is a fair description for what Ryan proposed.

It makes perfect sense to us that left-leaning PolitiFact staffers would accept that "voucher" is "almost indistinguishable" from "premium support. After all, who cares what health policy professionals think? What matter is what PolitiFact thinks.

So we move to the natural question: Did PolitiFact conclude that the terms were "almost indistinguishable" based on sound evidence? PolitiFact Wisconsin provided a source list featuring a number of PolitiFact stories, so we looked there for the evidence PolitiFact Wisconsin neglected to include in its story. We will review them for their evidence in chronological order.


PolitiFact National, Aug. 16, 2012

The differences between vouchers and premium support may matter to health-policy professionals, but not necessarily to a general audience. And while the 1995 Aaron-Reischauer paper may have offered a detailed definition for "premium support," language tends to evolve over nearly two decades.

The above essentially repeats the assertion that the terms have converged in meaning over time for the general audience. The fact check does elaborate on the argument. That elaboration takes the form of finding similarities between vouchers and premium supports, followed by having a pair of experts say it's reasonable to use "voucher" for "premium support." That is an approach PolitiFact could have applied to Ponzi schemes, but did not.

In fact, the fact check overlooks an obvious underlying Democratic argument. The fact check acknowledges that Republicans don't like the term "voucher" applied to the Medicare reform plan. But if the terms are interchangeable to the general audience then why would they care? Why would Democrats care, for that matter? We think people associate "voucher" with receiving a piece of paper and then having to go through the trouble of redeeming it. The perceived inconvenience accounts for the negative connotation the Democrats wish to pin on the Republicans' attempts at Medicare reform.

The Democrats are manipulating words to exaggerate inconveniences from a premium support system.

PolitiFact New Jersey, Sept. 10, 2012

PolitiFact New Jersey accepts and repeats the original argument from PolitiFact National:

As our PolitiFact colleagues noted, there are distinctions between the two terms, dealing with the type of inflation adjustment used and the degree of marketplace regulation imposed. Ryan’s most recent plan more closely reflects a pure premium support, but substantively, it’s somewhere between the two approaches. 

Henry Aaron, a senior fellow of economic studies at the Brookings Institution, a policy think tank, told PolitiFact National "that premium support is a type of voucher."

PolitiFact New Jersey adds nothing substantial to the argument.

PolitiFact National, Oct. 3, 2012

Less than a month later, PolitiFact National again recycled its earlier argument:

In the past, PolitiFact has found Obama’s "voucher" characterization reasonable, though as Obama noted, Republicans prefer "premium support."

Merriam-Webster defines a voucher as "a written affidavit or authorization … a form or check indicating a credit against future purchases or expenditures; a coupon issued by government to a parent or guardian to be used to fund a child's education in either a public or private school."

The plan pushed by Romney’s running mate, U.S. Rep. Paul Ryan, isn’t exactly a coupon, but it’s not so far off.

May it never be that "Social Security isn't exactly a Ponzi scheme, but it's not so far off."


PolitiFact New Jersey, Oct. 5, 2012

PolitiFact New Jersey stuck with the same mantra two days after PolitiFact National's "Mostly True" for President Obama:

Menendez’s claim is mostly accurate.

Ryan has proposed providing "premium support" payments to future Medicare beneficiaries to purchase health insurance. There are some distinctions between the two terms, but the word "voucher" generally describes this approach.

Again, the fact check contains no new reporting. The source list simply features the interview from which PolitiFact New Jersey pulled the claim it checked along with two earlier PolitiFact fact checks. That's it.

PolitiFact National, Nov. 19, 2013

In 2013, PolitiFact National finally added some new reporting. It's worth noting that the new reporting included another example of the "Ignore the Conservative Expert" game PolitiFact plays from time to time (bold emphasis added):

Yuval Levin, a health policy expert at the conservative Ethics and Public Policy Center told us he wouldn’t consider the proposal a voucher system at all.

There’s definitely debate over semantics, but to the average voter (if not the average policy wonk), it seems like the word "voucher" would accurately describe the basics of Ryan’s proposal (which, by the way, doesn’t sound all that different from the healthcare.gov marketplaces for the uninsured). Calling programs like this "voucher systems" has been common in the field for years without negative connotations, Van de Water said.

The conservative expert disagrees with the others (liberals?)? The solution is simple. Ignore the conservative. The Democrat gets a "Mostly True" rating because "'voucher system' is the colloquial way to refer to a program that gives people credit to purchase something."

No matter how many economists refer to pay-as-you-go financing as a "Ponzi game," PolitiFact will not acknowledge that the characterization is anything better than "Mostly False" (thanks for nothing, PolitiFact Wisconsin).

It's just one more example of PolitiFact's inconsistency favoring the liberal point of view.


Afters:

PolitiFact Wisconsin deserves special recognition for dinging Sen. Johnson with a "Mostly False" for comparing Social Security to a Ponzi scheme and giving an attack ad against Johnson a "Mostly True" since vouchers are (allegedly) pretty much the same as premium support.

PolitiFact's inconsistent approach to the proper use of terms is a disgrace to fact-checking.

Let's play 'Ignore the Expert' again

After finding it "Barely True" that Bill and Hillary Clinton were "dead broke" when they left the White House, it's no surprise that PolitiFact similarly jumps all over hapless Vice President Joe Biden for his claim that he has no savings account and no stocks or bonds.

PolitiFact tries to make these blue-collar public servants look like Bill Gates or something.  They gave Biden a "Half True" for his claim since he has a joint savings account with his wife, Jill Biden (Mrs. Biden has a number of other savings accounts to which the vice president apparently has no access).

So Biden says he has no savings account but he has one.  So that part's false.  And he says he has no stocks or bonds.  So that part must be true, since false plus true equals "Half True"?

Which brings us to our favorite part.  PolitiFact simply ignores one of the experts it cited.  Biden admits he has a pension.  PolitiFact cites George Pennacchi, finance professor at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign:

(P)ension funds invest in stocks and bonds or other assets, Pennacchi said.

"Thus, it is inescapable that Mr. Biden’s wealth is both directly and indirectly linked to stock and bond investments," Pennacchi said.

So maybe it's not true that Biden has no stocks or bonds. Except PolitiFact says it's true (bold emphasis added):

Biden said, "I don't own a single stock or bond... I have no savings accounts."

Biden was wrong to say that he doesn't have a savings account because he shares one with his wife. However, he doesn't have ownership over any stocks and bonds -- those all belong to his wife. We rate his statement Half True.

Contrary to Mr. Pennacchi's claim, PolitiFact is able to escape the direct and indirect links between Biden's wealth and stock and bond investments.

Layers of editors and stuff. Take a bow, PolitiFact. Great stuff.

Planetizen: 'How Many Bicycles Can Park In The Space Required By One Car? Don’t Ask PolitiFact'

Though we think PolitiFact unfairly harms conservatives more than liberals, we recognize that PolitiFact's ineptitude can potentially harm anything it touches.  We have a handy example of that from PolitiFact Oregon, courtesy of Todd Littman and the website Planetizen.

Littman wrote a report that undergirded Democrat Earl Blumenauer's claim that 20 bicycles can park in the space required by one car.

PolitiFact pulled its patented methods of misinterpretation and assumed that the "space required by one car" is a parking space.  Littman explained that his report isn't about parking spaces alone but takes into account the total space of a parking lot on a per-car basis.  He then related how he went through the all-too-typical runaround with the PolitiFact gang trying to get them to see his point and change the ruling.

His dealings with PolitiFact culminated in yet another disappointing exchange with the editor of PolitiFact national, this time with new national editor Angie Drobnic Holan:

I then contacted PolitiFact editor Angie Drobnic Holan, who, after several queries finally replied,

I looked at the report and I didn't see anything that wasn't factually accurate. In addition, the report seemed very thorough. I appreciate that you disagree with the rating, but at the end of the day, the rating is the judgment of the editors.

These responses indicate that the PolitiFact organization has little interest in helping their readers understand complex issues. It is news as sport rather than education. They showed no interest in making the column more accurate and fair by explaining the difference between on- and off-street parking facilities, and admitting that the statement would be "True" for the majority of car parking. Most readers will simply look at the Truth-o-Meter rating, few will understand that the conclusion only applies to a subset of total car parking.

The only way we could imagine PolitiFact could justify its stand was if Blumenauer was clearly talking about an individual parking space.  So we looked up the statement from Blumenauer:

Between 6 and 20 bicycles can be parked in the space required by one car.  The average cost of one parking space for a car in a paved lot is $2,200; in parking garages, a single car space averages $12,500. An independent cost-benefit analysis of Portland Oregon’s Bicycle Master Plan concluded that the plan would lower fuel costs by as much as $218 million (depending on the level of final investments) by 2040. (Journal of Physical Activity and Health, Vol 8 Supplement, January, 2011)

The context supports Littman.  Did PolitiFact object to the difference in cost between a parking space in a paved lot and that same space in a parking garage?  There's no excuse for the disparity in price unless one considers the structures as a whole.

This sort of thing is all too normal for PolitiFact.

We recommend Littman's critique.  He's got all the support he needs for some scathing commentary about PolitiFact.

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.

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.

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."

"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.

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.

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.

Madison Forum: "Not Politifact; Just Politicopinion"

In March of this year J. Randolph Evans of "The Madison Forum" clobbered PolitiFact over its failure to cleave to objective standards in its fact checks: 

(W)ith a name like Politifact, readers might think that in at least one area, newspapers had abandoned their biases for one brief moment of objectivity. Do not be fooled. Hidden within the clever marketing names like Politifact and the nifty ratings like pants-on-fire, newspapers still filter in their biases.

Evans used a fact check of Mitt Romney's claim about President Obama's international policy tour as his example.

Evans: 

Even though Politifact writers by their own admission “reviewed several analyses of what Obama’s foreign policy goals are in traveling the world and readily admitting to America’s mistakes,” they could never bring themselves to the Politifact of the matter; instead they opted for politicopinion.

Evans goes straight for his point and makes it well, though he could have strengthened his case even more by pointing out PolitiFact's eye-popping arbitrary dismissal of one of the expert opinions it sought (bold emphasis added):

We sent Obama's remarks to several different experts on foreign policy and apologies, to see if they thought Obama was apologizing.

• 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."

That's true fact checking.  If an expert gives a take you don't agree with or is out of step with other experts, just ignore them.  In the name of the Truth, of course.

Evans makes a number of good points about modern American journalism, so pay The Madison Forum a visit and read the whole bit.