PolitiFact Wisconsin: "Veteran" and "service member" mean the same thing

A funny thing happened when PolitiFact examined Democratic presidential candidate Tulsi Gabbard's claim the Trump administration deports service members.

Instead of ruling on whether the Trump administration was deporting service members, PolitiFact Wisconsin decided to look at whether the Trump administration was deporting non-naturalized service veterans.

Therefore "service members" are the same thing as non-naturalized service veterans?

We wish we were kidding. But read PolitiFact's summary conclusion. PolitiFact equates "service members" with "veterans" as though it's the most natural thing in the world, and doesn't even mention citizenship status:

Our ruling

Gabbard said at the same time Trump talks about supporting veterans, "he is deporting service members who have volunteered to serve this country."

The Trump administration expanded the grounds under which people, including veterans, can be deported, which some blame for more veterans being forced to leave the country. That said, GAO documents make clear the issue existed before Trump took office -- something that wasn’t acknowledged in Gabbard’s claim.

Our definition for Mostly True is "the statement is accurate but needs clarification or additional information." That fits here.

PolitiFact does mention citizenship issues in the body of the story. It opens, for example, with a frame emphasizing military service and illegal immigration:

Military matters and illegal immigration.

Both are hot-button issues for voters in the 2020 presidential election, though for different reasons.

U.S. Rep. Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii, a Democratic presidential hopeful and major in the Hawaii Army National Guard, linked them when she spoke July 11, 2019 at the League of United Latin American Citizens convention in Milwaukee.

In the quotation PolitiFact Wisconsin provided, Gabbard did nothing to explicitly link military service with illegal immigration. The journalist (or reader) would have to infer the connection. And PolitiFact Wisconsin failed to link to a transcript of Gabbard's speech, linking us instead to the Journal Sentinel's news report that fails to supply any additional context to Gabbard's remarks.

Intentional Spin?

We see evidence suggesting PolitiFact Wisconsin applied intentional spin in its story to minimize the misleading nature of Gabbard's statement.

In context, Gabbard referred to "lip service" Trump offers to "our veterans, to our troops," but PolitiFact lops off "to our troops" in its headline and deck material. That truncated version of Gabbard's statement makes it appear reasonable to assume Gabbard was talking about veterans and not active service members.

Put simply, PolitiFact manipulated Gabbard's statement to help make it match the interpretation PolitiFact's liberal bloggers gave it in the story. PolitiFact not only chose not to deal with the obvious way Gabbard's statement might mislead people, but also chose not to transparently disclose that decision to its readers.

Principles Forsaken

PolitiFact's statement of principles is a sham. Why? Because PolitiFact applies the principles so haphazardly that we might as well call the result situational ethics. The ideology of the claimant appears to serve as one of the situational conditions driving the decision as to which principle to apply in any given case.

In Gabbard's case, she made a statement that could easily be interpreted in a way that makes it false. And PolitiFact often uses that as the justification for a harsh rating. In its statement of principles PolitiFact says it takes into account whether a statement is literally true (or false). It also says PolitiFact takes into account whether the statement is open to interpretation (bold emphasis added).:

The three editors and reporter then review the fact-check by discussing the following questions.
• Is the statement literally true?
• Is there another way to read the statement? Is the statement open to interpretation?
• Did the speaker provide evidence? Did the speaker prove the statement to be true?
• How have we handled similar statements in the past? What is PolitiFact’s jurisprudence?

PolitiFact effectively discarded two of its principles for the Gabbard fact check.

We say that a fact-checking organization that does not apply its principles consistently cannot receive credit for consistent non-partisanship or fairness.

With PolitiFact, "words matter" sometimes.



Afters

We've always been open to legitimate examples showing PolitiFact's inconsistency causing unfair harm to liberals or Democrats.

The examples remain few, in our experience.

PolitiFact Wisconsin and the Worry-O-Meter

PolitiFact Wisconsin had no representation in our article on the worst 17 PolitiFact fact checks of 2017.

A May 18, 2018 fact check of Republican Leah Vukmir should help ensure PolitiFact Wisconsin makes the list for 2018.

Vukmir, a Republican looking for an opportunity to run against Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wisc.) in the 2018 election cycle, has used a hyperbolic ad campaign to paint Baldwin as weak on terrorism. Vukmir said Baldwin worried more about the architect of the 9-11 terrorist attacks than confirming Gina Haspel to head the CIA.

The key to Democrat opposition to the Haspel nomination stemmed from Haspel's involvement in the enhanced interrogation program, which included the technique of waterboarding. The CIA released a disciplinary review saying Haspel had no involvement in the decision to use enhanced interrogation, but that she simply carried out the orders she was issued.

PolitiFact Wisconsin adroitly skipped over all that and took the liberty of re-interpreting Vukmir's claim:

Does U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin have so much more concern for a 9/11 terrorist, compared to the president’s nominee to run the CIA, that she would vote against the nominee?

Vukmir's claim was more simple than PolitiFact Wisconsin's creative paraphrase (source: PolitiFact):

Tammy and her party are more interested, and they’re more worried about, the mastermind of 9/11 -- the individual that plotted and ultimately killed over 3,000 Americans on our soil. And she‘s more worried about those individuals than to support a very strong woman with a track record to be the head of the CIA.

Note that Vukmir did not say anything about what motivated Baldwin to withhold support for Haspel.

We suspect PolitiFact Wisconsin counts as a minority for its inability to figure out Vukmir's message: Opposing Haspel's nomination based merely on her following orders within the CIA hampers the CIA's ability to do its job effectively. Imagine working at the CIA and thinking one must second-guess the orders one receives to have a realistic shot at one day leading the CIA.

PolitiFact Wisconsin's fact check spent not a word on that angle of the story, sticking instead to its own idea that Vukmir must show that Baldwin personally showed significant worry about Khalid Sheik Mohammed in order to earn a rating better than "Pants on Fire."

Farcical Fact-Checking

To fact check what Vukmir actually said, PolitiFact Wisconsin would have needed evidence not only showing Baldwin's level of worry for Mohammed but also her level of worry for Haspel's nomination. Otherwise there's no baseline for determining one is greater than the other.

After all, Vukmir clearly made a claim comparing the two.

And how does one assess levels of worry without asserting an opinion? One might go by what a person said, but that assumes an entirely forthright subject. We don't know the answer. And PolitiFact offered no evidence it has an answer.

PolitiFact's approach was preposterous from the outset. It showed no specific level of worry over Mohammed and no specific level of worry over the Haspel nomination. And yet concluded that one was not lower than the other.

Vukmir's statement was best interpreted as hyperbole expressing the damage to CIA operations stemming from refusing a leadership role to a fully qualified woman for nothing more than following orders associated with the enhanced interrogation program--a program that the CIA described to leading congressional members of both parties without apparent objection at the time.

PolitiFact says it grants license for hyperbole. Exceptions doubtless stem, as we've said before, from Republicans trying to use hyperbole without a license.

• Is the statement rooted in a fact that is verifiable? We don’t check opinions, and we recognize that in the world of speechmaking and political rhetoric, there is license for hyperbole.

PolitiFact says it doesn't rate opinions. We suppose PolitiFact is entitled to its own opinion.


After Vukmir made her claim about Baldwin, Baldwin ended up voting in opposition to the Haspel nomination.

Newsbusters: "PolitiFact's Pretzel Twist for Democrat Gwen Moore: 'Mostly True,' But Not 'Literally Speaking'"

Tim Graham of Newsbusters scores a hit on PolitiFact Wisconsin with his Aug. 2, 2017 item on a rating from PolitiFact Wisconsin.

Rep. Gwen Moore (D--Wis) said, according to PolitiFact, "If you’re killed at 31 years old like Dontre Hamilton, who was shot 14 times by police for resting on a park bench in Milwaukee, nursing home care is not your priority."

PolitiFact Wisconsin admitted Moore's statement was not literally true:

Literally speaking, Hamilton was not killed simply for resting on a bench. He was shot after striking an officer with the officer’s baton.

PolitiFact Wisconsin rated the false statement "Mostly True."

In PolitiFact Wisconsin's defense, it imagined into being a way of viewing Moore's statement as true:

But in making a rhetorical point, Moore is correct that Hamilton had done nothing to attract the attention of police but fall asleep in a park.

Bless PolitiFact's heart for relieving Moore of the responsibility for using appropriate words to make her supposed rhetorical point. Moore did not talk at all about simply "drawing the attention of police." She talked specifically about Hamilton being shot (14 times) "for resting on a park bench."

This case helps illustrate how PolitiFact's "star chamber" feels little constraint from its stated definitions for its "Truth-O-Meter" ratings. PolitiFact defines "Mostly True" as "The statement is accurate but needs clarification or additional information."

In what manner was Moore's statement accurate without PolitiFact rewriting it to focus on the way Hamilton drew the attention of police?

If PolitiFact's "Truth-O-Meter" definitions were worth anything, then no false statement like Moore's would ever receive a rating of "Mostly True" or better. But it happens often.

Is it any wonder that people do not trust mainstream media fact checkers like PolitiFact?



Update March 24, 2019: Updated URL leading to PolitiFact's statement of principles. PolitiFact changed its statement of principles under a new URL. The old URL redirects to the new one. So we're now using the version from the Internet Archive from August 2017.

When PolitiFacts contradict

In PolitiFact's zeal to defend the Affordable Care Act from criticism, it contradicts itself.

In declaring it "False" that the ACA has entered a death spiral, PolitiFact Wisconsin affirms three aspects of a death spiral, one being rising premiums. PolitiFact affirms that premiums are rising. Then, PolitiFact states that none of the three conditions that make up a death spiral have occurred. We must conclude, via PolitiFact, that premiums are increasing and that premiums are not increasing.

In PolitiFact Wisconsin's own words (bold emphasis added):

Our rating

A death spiral is a health industry term for a cycle with three components — shrinking enrollment, healthy people leaving the system and rising premiums.

The latest data shows enrollment is increasing slightly and younger (typically healthier) people are signing up at the same rate as last year. And while premiums are increasing, that isn’t affecting the cost to most consumers due to built-in subsidies.

So none of the three criteria are met, much less all three.

It's not hard to fix. PolitiFact Wisconsin could alter its fact check to note that only one of the conditions of a death spiral is occurring across the board, but that subsidies insulate many customers from the effects of rising premiums.

Subsidizing the cost of buying insurance does not make the cost of the premiums shrink, exactly. Instead, it places part of the responsibility for paying on somebody else. When somebody else foots the bill, higher prices do not drive off consumers nearly as effectively.

We're still waiting for PolitiFact to recognize that the insurance market is not monolithic. When the rules of the ACA leave individual markets without any insurers because adverse selection has driven them out, the conditions of a death spiral have obtained in that market.

We also note, in the context of the ACA, that when the only people who elect to pay for insurance are those who are receiving subsidies, it is fair to say the share of the market that pays full price encountered a death spiral.

PolitiLies at PolitiFact Wisconsin II (Updated: PolitiFact amends)

In part one of "PolitiLies at PolitiFact Wisconsin," we shared our experience questioning PolitiFact's reporting from a fact check of U.S. Rep. Glenn Grothman (R-Wis.).

In part two, we will look at PolitiFact Wisconsin's response to having a clear error pointed out in one of its stories.

On May 11, 2017, PolitiFact Wisconsin published a "Pants on Fire" rating of U.S. Rep. Paul Ryan's claim that "Air Force pilots were going to museums to find spare parts over the last eight years."

PolitiFact issued the "Pants on Fire" ruling despite a Fox News report which featured an Air Force captain, identified by name, who said the Air Force had on seven occasions obtained parts for B-1 bombers from museums.

PolitiFact Wisconsin objected to the thin evidence, apparently including the failure of the report to identify any of the museums that allegedly served as parts repositories (bold emphasis added):

The only example Ryan’s office cited was a May 2016 Fox News article in which an Air Force captain said spare parts needed for a B-1 bomber at a base in South Dakota were taken from seven "museum aircraft" from around the country. The museums weren’t identified and no other details were provided.

Yet when we attempted to verify PolitiFact Wisconsin's reporting, we found the text version of the story said Capt. Travis Lytton (no other details were provided?) showed the Fox reporters a museum aircraft from which a part was stripped. Lytton also described the function of the part in the story (no other details were provided?).

The accompanying video showed a B-1 bomber situated next to the name of the museum: South Dakota Air and Space Museum.

If one of the seven museums was not the South Dakota Air and Space Museum, then the Fox News video was highly misleading. The viewer would conclude the South Dakota Air and Space Museum was one of the seven museums.

How did PolitiFact Wisconsin miss this information? And why, when Lytton was plainly identified in the Fox News report, did PolitiFact Wisconsin not try to contact Lytton to find out the names of the other museums?

"Readers who see an error should contact the writer or editor"

We like to contact the writer and the editor when we see an error.

In this case, we contacted writer Tom Kertscher and editor Greg Borowski (May 31, 2017):

Dear Tom Kertscher, Greg Borowski,
Your rating of Speaker Ryan's claim about the Air Force pulling parts from museum planes falsely claims that none of the seven museums were identified.

Yet the Fox News report said the Air Force officer showed reporters the museum plane from which a part was taken. And if you bothered to watch the video associated with the story, the name of the museum appears very plainly in front of the B-1 bomber the officer identified.

http://www.sdairandspacemuseum.com/

And if the names of the museums was a point worth mentioning, then why not contact the officer (identified by name in the Fox News report) and ask him? If he identified one of the museums, would he not identify the others?

After nearly a week, we have received no reply to our message and the PolitiFact Wisconsin fact check still features the same false information about the Fox News report.

Why?

Integrity?


Update June 10, 2017: On June 2017 we received a message from PolitiFact Wisconsin editor Greg Borowski. Borowski said he had not received our email message (we do not know if writer Tom Kertscher, to whom it was also sent, had the same experience). Borowski said after finding out about the criticism PolitiFact Wisconsin "added a note to the item."

PolitiFact Wisconsin removed two false statements from its fact check, one stating that the Fox News report identified none of the museums from which airplane parts were taken, and one stating that the report featured no other details beyond those mentioned in the fact check.

This editor's note was added at the end of the fact check:

Editor's note: This item was updated on June 9, 2017 to say that the Fox News report did identify one museum. That information does not change the rating.

As with the other correction we helped prompt this week, we are impressed by PolitiFact Wisconsin's ability to commit an error and then fix the error without admitting any mistake. The editor's note says the fact check was changed "to say the Fox News report did identify one museum." Why was that change made? The editor's note doesn't say. The truth is the change was made because PolitiFact Wisconsin made a mistake.

It's appropriate for journalists to admit to making mistakes when they make them.  We do not care for the spin we see in PolitiFact Wisconsin's update notices.

Are we being too tough on PolitiFact Wisconsin? We think noted journalist Craig Silverman would agree with us.

Rather than destroying trust, corrections are a powerful tool to reinforce how accountable and transparent we are.

“If you’re willing to admit you’re wrong, people will trust you more,” said Mathew Ingram of Gigaom. “If I said to someone ‘You know, I’m never wrong’ they would think I was a psychopath or a liar, so they would trust me less. That’s versus if I said ‘I screw up all the time.’ They trust you more because you’re more human.”

That’s the paradox of trust: admitting our mistakes and failings make us more deserving of trust.

Correction June 14, 2017: Commenter Vinni BoD noticed our update was dated Sept. 2017. The month was actually June, which was the correct month in two spots where we (inexplicably) had "Sept." instead.

PolitiLies at PolitiFact Wisconsin I (Updated: PolitiFact amends)

Back on May 15, 2017 we noticed a suspicious factoid in PolitiFact Wisconsin's fact check of congressman Glenn Grothman (R-Wis.) (bold emphasis added):

Grothman’s quick response: "Planned Parenthood is the biggest abortion provider in the country."

He added that the group is an outspoken advocate for what he termed "controversial" services such as birth control.

The notion that birth control services count as controversial looked suspiciously like the result of a liberal press filter. Curious whether the context of Grothman's statement supported PolitiFact Wisconsin's telling, we had a look at the context (17:55 through 20:55).



The crosstalk made it a bit hard for us to follow the conversation, but a partial transcript from an article by Jen Hayden at the left-leaning Daily Kos seemed reasonably accurate to us. Note the site also features a trimmed video of the same exchange.

It looked to us as though Grothman mentioned the "controversial programs" without naming them, instead moving on to talk about why his constituents can do without Planned Parenthood's role in providing contraceptive services. Just before Grothman started talking about alternatives to Planned Parenthood's contraceptive services, an audience member called out asking Grothman for examples of the "controversial programs." That question may have led to an assumption that Grothman was  naming contraceptive services as an example of "controversial programs."

In short, we could not see any solid justification for PolitiFact Wisconsin's reporting. So we emailed PolitiFact Wisconsin (writer Dave Umhoefer and editor Greg Borowski) to ask whether its evidence was better than it appeared:

Upon reading your recent fact check of Republican Glen Grothman, I was curious about the line claiming Grothman called birth control a "controversial" service.

He added that the group is an outspoken advocate for what he termed "controversial" services such as birth control.

I watched the video and had trouble hearing the audio (I've found transcripts that seem pretty much correct, however). It sounded like Grothman mentioned Planned Parenthood's support for some controversial services, then went on to talk about the ease with which people might obtain birth control. Was there some particular part of event that you might transcribe in clear support of your summary?

From what I can tell, the context does not support your account. If people can easily obtain birth control without Planned Parenthood's help, how would that make the service "controversial"? It would make the service less necessary, not controversial, right?

I urge you to either make clear the portion of the event that supports your interpretation, or else alter the interpretation to square with the facts of the event. By that I mean not guessing what Grothman meant when he referred to "controversial programs." If Grothman did not make clear what he was talking about, your account should not suggest otherwise.

If you asked Grothman what he was talking about and he made clear he believes birth control is a controversial service, likewise make that clear to your readers.

The replies we received offered no evidence in support of PolitiFact Wisconsin's reporting. In fact, the reply we received on May 18 from Borowski suggested that Umhoefer had (belatedly?) reached out to Grothman's office for clarification:

Dave has reached out to Grothman's office. So, you;ll [sic] have to be patient.

By June 4, 2017 we had yet to receive any further message with evidence backing the claim from the article. We sent a reminder message that day that has likewise failed to draw a reply.

[Update June 8, 2017: PolitiFact Wisconsin editor Greg Borowski alerted us that the fact check of Grothman was updated. We have reproduced the PolitiFact Wisconsin "Editor's note" at the end of this post]

What does it mean?

It looks like PolitiFact Wisconsin did careless reporting on the Grothman story. The story very likely misrepresented Grothman's view of the "controversial programs" he spoke about.

Grothman's government website offers a more reliable account of what Grothman views as Planned Parenthood's "controversial" programs.

It appears PolitiFact Wisconsin is aware it published something as fact without adequate backing information, and intends to keep its flawed article as-is so long as it anticipates no significant consequences will follow.

Integrity.


Afters

Also see PolitiLies at PolitiFact Wisconsin II,  published the same day as this part.

Update June 8, 2017: PolitiFact removed "such as birth control" from its summary of Grothman's statement about "controversial services."  PolitiFact Wisconsin appended the following editor's note to the story:

(Editor's note, June 7, 2017: An earlier version of this item quoted Grothman as saying that Planned Parenthood is an outspoken advocate for "controversial" services such as birth control. A spokesperson for his office said on June 7, 2017 that the video, in which Grothman's voice is hard to hear at times, may have led people to that conclusion, but that Grothman does not believe birth control is a controversial service. The birth control quote had no bearing on the congressman’s statement about Planned Parenthood and its role in abortions, so the rating of True is unchanged.)

We are impressed by PolitiFact Wisconsin's ability to run a correction while offering the appearance that it committed no error. Saying the original item "quoted Grothman" gives the reader the impression that Grothman must have misspoke. But benevolent PolitiFact Wisconsin covered for Grothman's mistake after his office clarified what he meant to say.

It's really not a model of transparency, and offers Grothman no apology for misrepresenting his views.

We stick with our assessment that PolitiFact Wisconsin reported carelessly. And we suggest that PolitiFact Wisconsin's error was the type of error that occurs when journalists think they know how conservatives think when in reality the journalists do not know how conservatives think (ideological bias).

On the bright side, the portion of the fact check that we criticized now reads as it should have read from the start. We credit PolitiFact Wisconsin for making that change. That fixes the main issue, for there's nothing wrong with having a bias if it doesn't show up in the reporting.

Of secondary importance, we judge the editor's note was subtly misleading and lacking in transparency.

We also note with sadness that the changes to PolitiFact Wisconsin's story do not count as either corrections or updates. We know this because PolitiFact Wisconsin added no "corrections and updates" tag to the story. Adding that tag would make a fact check appear on PolitiFact's page of stories that have been corrected or updated.



Correction June 9, 2017: Removed a redundant "because" from the final paragraph of the update.

PolitiFact Wisconsin don't need no stinkin' evidence

Is a fact check a fact check if it doesn't bother checking facts?

PolitiFact Wisconsin brings this question to the fore with its Dec. 16, 2016 fact check of former Democratic senator Russ Feingold. Feingold said Social Security was pretty much invented at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and that's where President Franklin Delano Roosevelt got the idea.

PolitiFact agreed, giving Feingold's claim a "True" rating:

But a funny thing happened when we looked for PolitiFact Wisconsin's evidence in support of Feingold's claims. The fact check omits those facts, if they exist.

Let's review what PolitiFact offered as evidence:

When we asked Feingold spokesman Josh Orton for backup, he pointed to several Wisconsinites and people tied to the University of Wisconsin-Madison — where Feingold graduated in 1975 — who were influential in developing Social Security.

PolitiFact went on to list four persons with UW-Madison connections (among many) who were influential in bringing Social Security to pass in the United States.

Then PolitiFact Wisconsin summarized its evidence, with help from an unbiased expert from UW-Madison:

Current UW-Madison professor Pamela Herd agreed that Wisconsinites tied to the university were key figures in the development of Social Security.

"There were a lot of people involved in the creation of this program, but some of the most important players were from Wisconsin," said Herd, an expert on Social Security.

Okay, got it? Now on to the conclusion:

Feingold said that the idea for Social Security "was basically invented up on Bascom Hill, my alma mater here; that's where Franklin Roosevelt got the idea."

Historical accounts show, and an expert agrees, that officials who helped propose and initially operate Social Security had deep ties to UW-Madison.

We rate Feingold’s statement True.

And there you have it. Fact-checking.

If officials who helped propose and initially operate Social Security had deep ties to UW-Madison, then Social Security was basically invented at UW-Madison. And that's where President Roosevelt got the idea. "True."

Where was PolitiFact when Al Gore claimed to have taken the initiative in creating the Internet?

Seriously: PolitiFact Wisconsin's fact check produces no solid or unequivocal evidence supporting one of Feingold's claims and completely ignores fact-checking the other (why?). Yet Feingold's claims receive a "True" rating?

What happened to comparing the content of the federal Social Security Act to its precursor from UW-Madison? What happened to looking at where Roosevelt got his ideas about providing social insurance?

That's not fact-checking. That's rubber-stamping.


Afters:

The silver lining from PolitiFact Wisconsin's fact check comes from its links to the Social Security Administration website, which offer facts instead of supposition about the history of Social Security.

PolitiFact Wisconsin did a stellar job of keeping inconvenient facts from the Social Security website out of its fact check.

Great Moments in the Annals of Subjectivity (Updated)

Did Republican Donald Trump win the electoral college in a landslide?

We typically think of a "landslide" as an overwhelming victory, and there's certainly doubt whether Trump's margin of victory in the electoral college unequivocally counts as overwhelming.

"Overwhelming" itself is hard to pin down in objective terms.

So that's why we have PolitiFact, the group of liberal bloggers that puts "fact" in its name and then proceeds to publish "fact check journalism" based on subjective "Truth-O-Meter" judgments.

When RNC Chairman Reince Priebus (and Trump's pick for his chief of staff) called Trump's electoral college victory a "landslide," PolitiFact Wisconsin's liberal bloggers sprang into action to do their thing (bold emphasis added):

Landslide, of course, is not technically defined. When we asked for information to back Priebus’ claim, the Republican National Committee merely recited the electoral figures and repeated that it was a landslide.

If "landslide" is not technically defined then what fact is PolitiFact Wisconsin checking? Is "landslide" non-technically defined to the point one can judge it true or false?

PolitiFact Wisconsin follows typical PolitiFact procedure in collecting expert opinions about whether Priebus' use of "landslide" matches its non-technical definition. One of the 10 experts PolitiFact consulted said Trump's margin was "close" to a landslide. PolitiFact said the other nine said it fell short, so PolitiFact ruled Priebus' claim "False."

Priebus said Trump’s win was "an electoral landslide."

But aside from the fact Trump lost the popular vote, his margin in the Electoral College isn’t all that high, either. None of the 10 experts we contacted said Trump’s win crosses that threshold.

We rate Priebus’ claim False.

One has to marvel at expertise sufficient to say whether the use of a term meets a non-technical definition.

One has to marvel all the more at fact checkers who concede that a term has a mushy definition ("not technically defined") and then declare that some use of the term fails to cross "that threshold."

What threshold?

One of the election experts said if Trump won by a landslide then Obama won by an even greater landslide.

RollCall, 2015:

In 2006, Democrats won back the House; two years later, President Barack Obama won by a landslide.

LA Times, 2012:

Obama officially wins in electoral vote landslide.

NPR, 2015:

President Obama won in a landslide.

NYU Journalism, 2008:

Obama Wins Landslide Victory, Charts New Course for United States.

Since Obama did not win by a landslide, therefore one cannot claim Trump won by a landslide? Is that it?

It is folly for fact checkers to try to judge the truth of ambiguous claims. PolitiFact often pursues that folly, of course, and in the end simply underscores what it occasionally admits: The ratings are subjective.

Finding experts willing to participate in the folly does not reduce the magnitude of the folly. This would have been a good subject for PolitiFact to use in continuing its Voxification trend. PolitiFact might have produced an "In context" article to talk about electoral landslides and how experts view the matter. But trying to corral the use of a term that is traditionally hard to tame simply makes a mockery of fact-checking.

Jeff Adds (Dec. 1, 2016):

Add this to a long list of opinions that PolitiFact treats as verifiable facts, including these two gems:

- Radio host John DePetro opined that the Boston Marathon bomber was buried "not far" from President John Kennedy. PolitiFact used their magical powers of objective divinity to determine the unarguable demarcation of "not far."

- Rush Limbaugh claimed "some of the wealthiest American's are African-Americans now." Using the divine wizardry of the nonpartisan Truth-O-Meter, PolitiFact's highly trained social scientists were able to conjure up a determinant definition of what "wealthiest" means, and specifically which people were included in the list.

Reasonable people may discount Trump's claim of a "landslide" victory assuming the conventional use of the term, but it's not a verifiable fact that can be confirmed or dismissed with evidence. It's an opinion.

The reality is that the charlatans at PolitiFact masquerade as truthsayers when they do little more than contribute to the supposed fake news epidemic by shilling their own opinions as unarguable fact. They're dangerous frauds whose declaration of objectivity doesn't withstand the slightest scrutiny.

More PolitiFact climate change shenanigans, featuring PolitiFact Wisconsin

One of PolitiFact's more reliable bends to the left occurs on the issue of climate change. The arbiters of truth, for example, class Republicans as climate change deniers if they do not go on record affirming man-made climate change. So much for PolitiFact's burden of proof criterion, right?

Hypocrites.

This related example comes from PolitiFact Wisconsin, checking on a claim from Senate candidate Russ Feingold that his Republican opponent does not believe humans contribute to climate change.

PolitiFact Wisconsin's approach to the fact check resembles the incompetent methods used by other iterations of the PolitiFact family. A Zebra Fact Check critique of PolitiFact's past fact check foreshadows the problems with PolitiFact Wisconsin's fact check of Feingold:

First, interpret an unclear statement according to a more clear statement by the same source.  Second, in judging what a person thinks in the present place greater weight on more recent statements.

PolitiFact Wisconsin does not apply these commonsense principles.

PolitiFact Wisconsin's evidences, in chronological order

2010
Johnson: "I absolutely do not believe in the science of man-caused climate change. It’s not proven by any stretch of the imagination."

2014

"There are other forces that cause climate to change," Johnson told Here and Now’s Robin Young. "So climate does change and I don’t deny that man has some effect on that. It certainly has a great deal of effect on spoiling our environment in many different ways."

But Johnson softened his view as soon as the next sentence: "I’ve got a very open mind, but I don’t have the arrogance that man can really do much to affect climate."

2015
Johnson votes against a proposed amendment to a bill touching the Keystone Pipeline. The amendment would have described the sense of the Senate on the issue of anthropogenic climate change, including the ideas that humans "significantly" affect the climate and that climate change increases the severity of extreme weather events (such as hurricanes).

2015

"Man-made global warming remains unsettled science. World-renowned climate experts have raised serious objections to the theories behind these claims. I believe it is a bad idea to impose a policy that will raise taxes on every American, will balloon energy prices and will hurt our economic competiveness (sic) – especially on such uncertain predictions."

2016

"Listen, man can affect the environment; no doubt about it," he said. "The climate has always changed, it always will. … The question is, how much does man cause changes in our environment, changes in our climate, and what we could possibly even do about it?"

Assessing PolitiFact Wisconsin's evidences

Following the principles mentioned above, Johnson's clearest statements on humans having some role in climate change comes from the 2014 and 2016 quotations. In 2014, Johnson said he does not deny humans have a role in climate change. In 2016, Johnson said humans "clearly" have a role in changing the climate. Johnson's clearest statements on the subject directly contradict Feingold's claim.

Our principles also guide us toward giving a preference to more recent statements. Therefore, we consider the 2015 climate change amendment for some sign that Johnson denied a human role in climate change.

Is there a worse proof of a legislator's specific views on a topic than their willingness to vote in favor of a "sense of the Senate" amendment? Particularly when that amendment does not feature language narrowly tailored to suit the question?

Would Johnson have voted in favor of the amendment if he believed there was good evidence that undefined "climate change" causes an increase in severe weather events? Who knows? We don't. But if you're PolitiFact Wisconsin you can simply assume the answer is "no" and call it fact-checking.

PolitiFact concludes:

Johnson did not support a Senate amendment to acknowledge a man-made role in climate change and expressed skepticism each of the few times he acknowledged humans might contribute. He has acknowledged at times that humans can play a role but downplayed how significant that role might be.

For a statement that is accurate but needs additional clarification, our rating is Mostly True.

PolitiFact's conclusion consists of spin.

The Senate amendment was not simply about "a man-made role in climate change." It stipulated a significant role as well as a worsening effect on severe weather.

When Johnson said humans play a role in climate change he did not express skepticism about whether humans play a role. He expressed skepticism about the extent of that role. They're not the same thing, and skepticism about the latter does not contradict Johnson's recognition that humans play some role in affecting the climate. PolitiFact says Johnson says humans "can" play a role. But that's just more spin. Johnson did not simply say humans "can" play a role. He said humans do play a role, and he said he does not deny humans play a role.

If Johnson says humans play some role in causing climate change, that statement cannot support Feingold's claim that Johnson does not believe humans play any role in climate change.

Johnson's statement cannot reasonably justify the "Mostly True" rating with which PolitiFact Wisconsin gifted Feingold. The statements could reasonably justify "False" or "Mostly False" ratings if PolitiFact's definitions for its ratings meant something.

PolitiFact's continued inability to apply simple logic in the course of its fact checks continues to boggle our minds. At the same time, we're not surprised. This is the type of error that results when left-leaning journalists rate the truth of political statements on a subjective scale.

Jon Feere: "Does Hillary support a border wall? Someone should ask"

Jon Feere of the Center for Immigration Studies was recently cited as an expert by PolitiFact Wisconsin.

Like a number of experts in the past, Feere came away unimpressed with the way PolitiFact made use of his expertise. Feere wrote an article questioning PolitiFact's finding that it is "Half True" Hillary Clinton once favored building a wall on the Mexican border.

We love articles like Feere's that reveal the correspondence between PolitiFact and the experts it cites in its stories. People like Feere give us the type of transparency PolitiFact should provide in the first place.

We recommend reading the whole thing for the detailed analysis Feere offers of PolitiFact's approach to the subject.

Here's a two-paragraph teaser:

Had Trump said, "By the way, Hillary's 700 miles is 300 miles shorter than the 1,000 miles I'm supporting" PolitiFact would have had to give the statement a "True" rating which means it probably would never have been picked up by PolitiFact in the first place.

Bottom line: It's totally true that Clinton once supported a double-wall border fence that never got constructed, and it's totally true that Trump's proposed wall is 300 miles longer.

Also check the tag "Biased interviews of experts" for another example of an expert with this type of PolitiFact experience. More if we get around to tagging them.

PolitiFact: Lightning strikes still make a better comparison than alligator attacks

If you're tempted to illustrate the rarity of something by comparing it to something from real life, PolitiFact has a message for you: Take lightning strikes over alligator attacks.

On the issue of voter fraud, PolitiFact has given a number of "True" ratings to persons saying lightning strikes outnumber cases (that's cases considered for prosecution, mind you, not "cases" in the sense of "instances") of in-person voter impersonation.

PolitiFact's comparison is rigged by its narrow count of "cases," of course, but that's another story.

PolitiFact Wisconsin recycled the fact check with an April 7, 2016 item. The item offers no hint of criticism of the comparison of voter fraud to lightning strikes.

PolitiFact Wisconsin's "True" rating perpetuates the inconsistency we noted from a PolitiFact Florida fact check from 2015. It was claimed alligator attacks are more likely than a criminal attack by a Floridian with a concealed-carry gun permit. PolitiFact found the evidence broadly supported the claim but ruled it "Mostly False" since comparing alligator attacks to attacks with a firearm doesn't make sense:

(T)hese statistics, imperfect as they are, do support the notion that both kinds of attacks are uncommon. Whether this is a valid argument in favor of the bill is in the eye of the beholder. We find the statement has an element of truth but ignores other information that would give a different impression. So we rate it Mostly False.

There's an item a Zebra Fact Check criticizing PolitiFact Florida's ruling in detail.

It's worth noting that PolitiFact Wisconsin's evidence on voter fraud shared essentially the same weakness (no dependable count creating doubt):

It’s fair to say, however, that impersonation cases can be hard to count in that they are hard to prove -- particularly when no photo ID requirement is in place and a voter can cast a ballot simply by stating the name of a registered voter.

So the number of cases of in-person fraud by impersonation may be higher than that cited by Levitt, but no independent source suggests it is higher than the number of lightning strikes.

(...)

We rate Pocan’s statement True.

In both cases, then, PolitiFact doesn't really have the facts to fit the claim. But the liberal gets a "True" and the conservative gets a "Mostly False."

In other words, PolitiFact is objective and nonpartisan. Or something.

And if something happens rarely, compare it to lighting strikes instead of alligator attacks. Your PolitiFact report card may suffer otherwise.

The awe-inspiring importance of place

On May 22, 2015, PolitiFact Wisconsin published a fact check of the National Republican Senatorial Committee. It seems the NRSC accused Democratic candidate for Wisconsin senator, Russ Feingold, of announcing his candidacy in California.

Whoa, said PolitiFact Wisconsin. That's "Pants on Fire" false!

We admit the ruling amused us. After all, PolitiFact is the non-partisan fact checker that gave then-candidate Barack Obama a "Mostly True" for the claim his uncle helped liberate Auschwitz.

No, we're not kidding.

Auschwitz was liberated by the Soviet Union, not by Allied forces. PolitiFact gave Obama the "Mostly True" rating since he did have an "uncle" (in a loose-but-legitimate sense of the term) who was with the Allied forces that liberated a concentration sub-camp called Ohrdruf.

The NRSC was ineligible for that kind of break despite saying Feingold was a Stanford (California) professor and a failed 2010 candidate:

"In what may be the oddest move of the campaign season thus far, Stanford Professor and failed 2010 candidate Russ Feingold announced his Wisconsin Senate run today from … California."

Funny how that works.

PolitiFact Wisconsin: It's false until somebody fact-checks it

We've long registered our objections to PolitiFact's fallacious "burden of proof" criterion for political claims.

PolitiFact Wisconsin gives us a fantastic example of that flawed method with its fact check of Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson. Carson highlighted problems with advancement in the black community by saying there are more blacks involved with the criminal justice system than with higher education.

PolitiFact Wisconsin decided to evaluate claim and rated it "False." But of course there's a problem with the rating. PolitiFact Wisconsin found it had poor data with which to work:

(T)here is only one solid figure -- 75,000 black males ages 18 to 24 in prison. We’re not aware of any recent counts of the black males in that age group who were arrested, in jail, or on probation or parole at a particular time.

PolitiFact Wisconsin emphasized that relatively low solid figure in its summary paragraph:

Carson did not provide evidence that backs his claim. The latest federal figures we found show 75,000 black males in that age group who were in prison in 2013 and in the range of 690,000 to 779,000 who were in college. We are not aware of any recent figures for the number of black males ages 18 to 24 arrested, in jail, or on probation or parole at any particular time.

If figures do surface, we’ll re-evaluate this item, but we rate Carson’s claim False.

Perhaps it makes sense if the number of blacks ages 18 to 24 in college outnumber those involved with the criminal justice system 779,000 to 75,000. But that number comparison is rigged against Carson. PolitiFact Wisconsin acknowledges Carson's claim on unknown numbers of young blacks arrested, in jail, on probation or on parole.

And that's the Achilles' heel of PolitiFact Wisconsin's fact check. It collected enough information to enable rough estimates of those categories.

Was Carson's claim plausible?

We start our estimate by noting the percentage of blacks ages 18 to 24 in the federal prison population was fairly high: PolitiFact said the number of about 14 percent of the total black population.

We aim to create a conservative estimate, erring on the side of caution, so we'll assume that just 10 percent of blacks in the other categories fall in the 18 to 24 age range.

Arrests

PolitiFact Wisconsin noted that one individual might be arrested more than once. Still, the fact checkers gave the number 3 million for arrests of adult blacks in 2012. Ten percent of 3 million gives us a figure of 300,000, but to help account for multiple arrests we'll cut that number in half and use 150,000.

In Jail

PolitiFact Wisconsin gave a figure of 261,500 for jail inmates in mid-2013. Ten percent of that figure gives us about 26,000.

On Probation or Parole

PolitiFact Wisconsin said 4.75 million people of all races were on probation, parole or other supervision in 2013. The Bureau of Justice Statistics, PolitiFact's source, says blacks account for 30 percent of that number. That gives us 1.4 million, and 10 percent of 1.4 million comes to 140,000.

Totals

Combined with the 75,000 prison population PolitiFact Wisconsin used, our conservative estimate comes to 391,000--about half of PolitiFact Wisconsin's peak figure for black college enrollment. Based on our estimate, we think it's very unlikely Carson's claim exaggerates the truth by more than 100 percent, probably exaggerates it by substantially less than 100 percent and perhaps doesn't exaggerate at all.

For comparison, PolitiFact Georgia recently gave a "Mostly False" rating to a claim exaggerated by over 200 percent.

Do these numbers potentially support Carson's underlying point about the upward mobility of young black males? For some reason, PolitiFact Wisconsin did not deem that point worth considering.

Shall fact checkers rate claims "False" if they are difficult to settle? We think that's the wrong method. We also think fact checkers err by selectively ignoring politicians' underlying arguments. Either consider the underlying argument every time or never consider the underlying argument. Fairness demands it.

PolitiFact Wisconsin serves up more baloney on Obama cutting the deficit in half

PolitiFact defines its "True" rating as "The statement is accurate and there’s nothing significant missing."

Thus we greet with derisive laughter PolitiFact's Sept. 5, 2014 bestowal of a "True" rating on President Obama's declaration "We cut our deficits by more than half."

Curious about what "we" cut the deficits? PolitiFact Wisconsin is here to help:

"We" is "he": Obama (image from PolitiFact.com)

"We" is "he." Obama did it. Obama cut the national deficit in half. The statement is accurate and there's nothing significant missing. Right?

Well, no. It's a load of hooey that PolitiFact has consistently helped Obama sell.

Here are some insignificant things PolitiFact Wisconsin found:

1. "When you use Obama's methodology to compare the deficit Obama inherited -- the 2009 result minus the stimulus package to that in 2013 --  the drop in the deficit is slightly under half, at 48%."
2.  "'The economic recovery, wind-down of stimulus, reversal of TARP/Fannie transactions, and lower interest rates are really what has caused our deficit to fall so much,' Goldwein told us. He mentioned cuts in discretionary spending as well."
3.  "(Ellis) and Goldwein emphasized that while the deficit has been halved, it’s been halved from a skyscraping peak."

The second point is significant because TARP and other bailout spending was heavily focused on FY2009. As that money is repaid, it counts as lower spending ("negative spending"). The government has turned a profit on the TARP bailouts, so a fair bit of the "skyscraping peak" came right back to the government, making its later spending appear lower.

Here are some insignificant missing things PolitiFact Wisconsin didn't bother to mention:

1. PolitiFact claims it takes credit and blame into account. But Obama carries little (if any) personal responsibility for reducing the deficit by half.
2. Remember those obstructionist Republicans who block the Democrats' every attempt to pass jobs bills and keep critically important entitlement benefits flowing?
3. PolitiFact's expert, Goldwein, mentioned cuts in discretionary spending. Way to go, Obama! Oh, wait, that was largely a result of the sequestration that the president blames on Republicans.

So, yeah, the deficit was cut in half. But given the nature of the FY2009 deficit spike, cutting the deficit in half by the end of Obama's first term in office should have been a layup. It wasn't a layup because the economy stayed bad. Democrats would have continued spending investing in jobs and education if Republicans hadn't gained control of the House of Representatives in 2010.

Obama tries to take this set of circumstances largely beyond his control to fashion a feather for his own cap.

To PolitiFact Wisconsin, none of that is significant. What a joke.


Afters

For more on Obama's effect on the deficit and debt, see the following Zebra Fact Check articles:

FactCheck.org says federal spending has increased ‘far more slowly’ under Obama than under Bush

Is the federal deficit ‘falling at fastest rate in 60 years’?


Edit 11/08/2014 - Added link to original PFW article in second paragraph - Jeff

PolitiFact Wisconsin tries to scorch Scott Walker with its own burning britches

Though our research shows PolitiFact Wisconsin may have an axe to grind against the Democratic Party of Wisconsin, that doesn't necessarily mean PF Wisconsin isn't biased against Republicans.

On Aug. 4, 2014, PolitiFact Wisconsin published a hacktastic fact check of Governor Scott Walker.  This one certainly belongs in PolitiFact's crowded annals of fact checks too absurd or inept to qualify as fact checks.

Here's the statement from Walker, via Wisconsin Public Radio, that drew PF Wisconsin's attention:

"Mitt Romney did not run his campaign on the basis of arguing his experience in the business world was a reason to vote for him,” Walker said. “If he had, then I think it would be fair game to say then you need to look at all of his experience.”

PF Wisconsin contacted the Walker campaign about the statement.  Walker spokesperson Alleigh Marré said Walker was saying Romney didn't base his campaign all or mostly on his business experience.

While that reasoning may sound perfectly plausible to reasonable people, PolitiFact Wisconsin found reason to reject the Walker campaign's explanation:

But Walker did not couch his remark that way; he said Romney didn’t offer his business experience even as "a" reason to support him.

That’s a rewrite of history.

Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat?

We're supposing that Walker's statement looked like this through the distorted PolitiLens:

Unfortunately for PolitiFact Wisconsin, striking "run his campaign on the basis of" and changing "arguing" to "argue" represent a rewrite of history.  With the quotation intact, Marré's explanation makes good sense and must warrant strong consideration as the correct interpretation of Walker's statement.

PolitiFact Wisconsin's argument based on a telltale "a" doesn't pass the sniff test.

Despite the obvious reasonable explanation, PolitiFact Wisconsin insists that if Romney offered his business experience as a reason to vote for him, then that means Walker's claim is ridiculously false.

So PolitiFact Wisconsin produces the smoking gun:  Scott Walker introduced Romney at a campaign rally and praised his business experience!

We reviewed the video clip.  Yes, Walker praises Romney's business experience.  But he he goes on to say that the big reason to vote for Romney stems from is leadership as governor in a state dominated by Democrats.

In short, the supposed smoking gun, along with the rest of PolitiFact's evidence, dovetails extremely well with the explanation from the Walker campaign.

Here's Walker's speech introducing Romney.




We can't imagine what would possess PolitiFact Wisconsin stalwarts Dave Umhoefer and Greg Borowski to see this as a "Pants on Fire" falsehood from Walker.  Unless they're liberally biased, of course.  Then it makes sense.

A serious fact check would accept the reasonable explanation from the Romney (bww 8-9-14) Walker campaign and then test whether the Burke campaign's emphasis on her business career differs significantly from Romney's.  Maybe Walker's claim would check out, and maybe it wouldn't.  If only there was somebody out there to help us find the truth in politics.  But alas!

For what it's worth, Burke's campaign website does emphasize her private sector business experience quite a bit.

Shark and Shepherd: 'Politifact misses again'

Wisconsin blogger Rick Esenberg of Shark and Shepherd returns with another apt skewering of PolitiFact Wisconsin (find the first one here).

Esenberg notes the gymnastics PolitiFact Wisconsin performs for the sake of giving Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wisc.) a "Mostly False" rating for claiming Medicare is on its way to bankruptcy and the Medicare trust fund will go bankrupt in 2026.

We'll tease readers with the Esenberg's central point, since we would not do justice to his concise and compelling reasoning by using excerpts:

At worst, Ryan has made a true statement that should be tempered by the recognition that we can fix the problem. It is, of course, silly to criticize him for that since he's been banging on about "fixing" the problem for his entire career. In other words, he has repeatedly recognized both the problem and the need for a fix.

Politifact Wisconsin takes cover in the fact that two other fact checkers have engaged in the same man[eu]vers.

We recommend reading the full version.

Before finding Esenberg's post, we had considered a post comparing the Ryan rating to PolitiFact's recent rating of Hillary Clinton.  Clinton said she and President Clinton were dead broke when they left the White House.  Clinton received a "Mostly False" rating, just like Ryan.  And, to be fair, her statement communicated something accurate about their liquid assets.  But PolitiFact had better justification for a low rating for Clinton than for Ryan.  Mrs. Clinton, after all, inked an $8 million book deal in December 2000.

PolitiFact somehow neglected to mention the timing of the lucrative book deal in its fact check, though the article did mention royalty income of $2.84 million in 2001 from publisher Simon & Schuster.  The type of "broke" the Clintons experienced when leaving the White House was the same type of broke experienced by millions of Americans who owe more on a mortgage than they own in assets.

Shark and Shepherd:'Pants on Fire for Politifact'

The Wisconsin blog "Shark and Shepherd" lowers the boom on a recent PolitiFact Wisonsin item on the performance of students in charter schools.

Wisconsin Democratic gubernatorial candidate Mary Burke said there was no evidence Wisconsin's charter schools improve student performance.  PolitiFact Wisconsin rated her statement "Mostly True."

Enter Shark and Shepherd's Rick Esenberg, who goes into detail to point out a slew of problems with PolitiFact's fact check.

Here's Esenberg's introduction of the topic (with minor reformatting):

Every once in a while there is a Politifact whose little emoticon (true, mostly true, pants on fire, etc.) is so gobsmackingly wrong that it leaves you speechless. Here’s the latest.

The statement to be checked is an observation by gubernatorial candidate Mary Burke that Wisconsin’s school choice program “has no research that shows its going to improve student learning.” Writing for Politifact, T[o]m Kertscher rates that the statement “mostly true.”

He’s got it completely wrong. In fact, the only evidence that exists on whether the voucher program improves student learning says that it does.

We encourage interested readers to visit Shark and Shepherd to read the rest.

PolitiFact Wisconsin's version of the gender pay hack

Context matters – We examine the claim in the full context, the comments made before and after it, the question that prompted it, and the point the person was trying to make.
--"Principles of PolitiFact, PunditFact and the Truth-O-Meter"

It's often difficult to take seriously PolitiFact's claim that it examines context.  We have our latest example of this PolitiFailure via PolitiFact Wisconsin, on the subject of--what else?--the gender pay gap:

"Women deserve equal pay for equal work. It's just that simple," Burke, a Madison School Board member, said in an April 8, 2014 news release.

"In Wisconsin, a woman only earns 80 cents for every dollar a man earns--and pay discrimination doesn't just hurt our families, it hurts our economies, too."

What's so complicated about doing this fact check correctly?  If Democrat gubernatorial candidate Mary Burke is arguing that women deserve equal pay for equal work, then the statistic she's using is highly misleading.

PolitiFact Wisconsin explains why, in the same fact check:

In rating a number of pay-gap claims, we and our PolitiFact colleagues have found that wording is crucial. Two of those fact-checks help put Burke's claim into perspective.

Former Dane County executive Kathleen Falk, while campaigning for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination to challenge Walker in the 2012 recall election, said Wisconsin women "are paid 81 cents to the dollar of a man doing the same job."

The key phrase was "same job."

PolitiFact Wisconsin rated Falk's claim "False." And in rating similar claims before this year, PolitiFact gave them no higher than a "Mostly False" rating.

This year, however, the national PolitiFact gave President Obama a "Mostly True" for a claim closely parallel to Burke's. Apparently a Democrat politician can say it's important that we establish laws to help ensure equal pay for equal work--that's for men and women "doing the same job"--then throw in the statistic for men and women working full-time at different jobs and like magic the "Truth-O-Meter" rating rises to "Mostly True."

It's ridiculous.  This is an intentional deception.  PolitiFact overlooked it.  PolitiFact Oregon overlooked it.  And now PolitiFact Wisconsin has signed on to sell the Democratic Party's lie du jour.

The stat doesn't fit.  And if the stat doesn't fit, PolitiFact must acquit.

Media Trackers: "Arbitrary PolitiFact Opinion Defends DPI, Liberal Bias"

PolitiFact's founding editor Bill Adair may be moving on to Duke University, but as the watchdogs at Media Trackers help show, the remaining editors stand ready to continue Adair's legacy of lamely responding to criticism.

Brian Sikma of Media Trackers pressed PolitiFact Wisconsin editor Greg Borowski for the justification of a fact check of conservative columnist George Will.

Sikma identified a key problem with the rating:

PolitiFact insists that the reason Will is wrong is because DPI merely made the flyers and materials available to educators, and DPI never specifically told students what to do. But is it possible to promote something to educators and expect for that to not be potentially, either overtly or covertly, promoted to the students of those educators?

 Sikma followed up by trying to grill Borowski:

Asked why they rated Will’s statement the way they did, PolitiFact Wisconsin insisted that they did not give Will a “False” rating, only a “Mostly False.” Greg Borowski, editor of PolitiFact Wisconsin, which is housed at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, pointed out that the definition of a “Mostly False” rating is “The statement contains an element of truth but ignores critical facts that would give a different impression.”

Asked how Will’s statement, which was also true, didn’t at least merit a “Mostly True” rating, Borowski replied, “I’m not going to be drawn into your little game here.”

 Borowski refuses to let Sikma draw him into the "game" of specifically justifying a PolitiFact rating.

Seriously, how is that a game?  PolitiFact supposedly exists to make these ratings and help readers decide whether they agree with the rating.

Sikma's approach exposes the fact that PolitiFact's "Truth-O-Meter" only plays at objectivity.  If a statement is false, PolitiFact can still justify a rating of "Mostly False" or higher.  If a statement is true, PolitiFact can still find ways to rate it "False" or even "Pants on Fire."  PolitiFact does this by inconsistently applying its set of standards.  The standards assist in the process by including few objective criteria on which to justify ratings.  Subjective and arbitrary ratings result, which may explain why PolitiFact editors get a bit cagey when pressed to justify a rating.


Jeff adds: Sikma highlights a longstanding gripe of ours. PolitiFact likes to present itself as answering some noble journalistic cause and providing an unbiased and objective view. But the reality is their ratings are ordinary commentary typical of any editorial page. There's simply nothing unique about PolitiFact's op-ed's ratings, save for the gimmicky Truth-O-Meter graphic and the conceit that they're immune to partisanship.

Borowski's sensitivity to being questioned betrays the joke. Facts, by definition, are non-partisan. But PolitiFact can't settle for simply publishing facts. That's why Romney's truth that Jeeps will be built in China becomes a Lie of the Year after PolitiFact expounds on what they think Romney was implying. Their Truth-O-Meter and hilariously ambiguous ratings definitions allow the editors to apply their own bias to tell you what the facts mean.

That's not fact-checking. That's political commentary. Sikma touched the right nerve with Borowski, and judging by the snide response it was a sensitive one.



Edit 4-22-13: Corrected spelling of "Sikma" in Jeff adds section

Wisconsin Reporter: "Politifact Wisconsin politispins a half truth on tax hikes"

Via Watchdog.org, the same folks who brought us Ohio Watchdog and Virginia Watchdog, we have a critique of PolitiFact Wisconsin from the Wisconsin Reporter:

MADISON — Here’s a riddle for you: When is a tax hike not an increase? Answer: When Politifact, the self-proclaimed political fact-checking enterprise, decides to take the question for a spin.

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel version of the national Politifact brand did so when it rated half-true Gov. Scott Walker’s Jan. 4 tweet: “Thanks to Washington, nearly everyone will pay more in taxes in 2013. Somehow people think it’s just the wealthy. It’s not.”

Reporter Ryan Ekvall nails PolitiFact on a couple of its traditional problems.  First, it grades Gov. Walker  "Half True" for a true statement.  Second, the justification rests on Walker failing to provide sufficient context--on Twitter, of all places.  Yes, Twitter, the social media site that limits comments to 140 characters.

Ekvall's critique is solid, so give it a read.

We look forward to more from Watchdog.org's Wisconsin Reporter.