SaintPetersBlog: Reporters Are More Expensive Than Hookers

Noted Florida blogger Peter Schorsch wrote a great post regarding PolitiFact's deeply flawed Kickstarter campaign. Schorcsh brings up a few excellent points we missed in our critique, but here's our favorite:

Seriously, $15,000 for PolitiFact to do its job? Not some sort of in-depth, special investigation, but to cover a political event readers probably expected them to cover.

Don’t get me started on the argument that “fact-checking” major speeches like the State of the Union was what journalists once did without special “Pants On Fire Meters,” much less Kickstarter campaigns.

Schorsch is rightfully skeptical about the $15,000 figure. How much are they going to pay Aaron Sharockman to Google old PolitiFact articles?

Head over to SaintPetersBlog to read Schorsch's brief but excellent post.


Bryan adds:

I think Schorsch was too tough on the hapless liberal bloggers at PolitiFact. It's no secret that most newspaper organizations are losing gobs of money, and the Tampa Bay Times certainly qualifies on that score. The exciting announcement of the Kickstarter project was just positive spin on a sad state of affairs.

Schorsch hits the mark in pointing out that checking the State of the Union speech ought to fall within the basic duties of a political fact checking organization.  But the hooker comparison, while hilarious, is overly harsh.

On this one I'd leaven the snark with a little sympathy.

The "pick what we fact check" update

As Jeff D. noted in a post last week, PolitiFact has started a fundraising campaign at Kickstarter to pay for live fact-checking of the State of the Union address and response.

Jeff focused one of the perks for giving $100 or more: PolitiFact says it will give people who give at or above that level the privilege of picking what they fact check. Jeff pointed out that the offer places PolitiFact effectively on the horns of dilemma. Either PolitiFact is unethically selling control of its editorial decisions or else PolitiFact is making a sham offer to entice donors to give $100 or more.

We wanted to find out which it was, so Jeff came up with a scathingly brilliant idea: Join the campaign to gain the privilege of asking the questions we want answered, and see how PolitiFact will go about living up to its promises on a couple of the other lower-level perks given to supporters.

I probably wouldn't give two cents for PolitiFact's fact checking, but Jeff provided the funding and so far we're getting a decent return on the investment:

Bryan W. White about 9 hours ago

What hidden details of the "pick what we fact check" reward make it ethical, please?

Creator PolitiFact about 8 hours ago

Nothing hidden about the "pick what we fact check" reward, Bryan.

At PolitiFact, we have a constantly updating list of potential fact-checks. We call it the "buffet." And as you can imagine, there is more to fact-check than we can get to. We make our decisions based on news judgment, etc.

People who make a contribution of $100 or more will receive a list of four fact-checks from that buffet (likely two from conservatives, two from liberals). They'll get to pick what claim we check. Their choice won't stop us from checking other claims from the list, but it will assure that the claim they're interested in gets fact-checked.

It will also give them a sense of our process.

Let's unpack that response.

"Nothing hidden about the 'pick what we fact check' reward"

What? Of course there was hidden information about the reward. The description was ambiguous. Perhaps, as Jeff suggested, PolitiFact would offer the same four potential fact checks to all those supporting the project at the $100 or higher level. Or not. PolitiFact hid the precise nature of the reward with an imprecise description.

"People who make a contribution of $100 or more will receive a list of four fact-checks from that buffet (likely two from conservatives, two from liberals)."

Does each contributor of $100 or more choose from a unique list of four fact checks? We still don't know for sure from PolitiFact's description. So that information remains hidden. Probably after one of a set of four is chosen the remainder return to PolitiFact's "buffet" of potential fact checks. But that procedure potentially leads to the type of sham reward scenario Jeff touched on in our earlier post.

Suppose PolitiFact has a buffet consisting of 100 potential fact checks. And suppose PolitiFact has 97 contributors who paid $100 or more for the privilege of choosing what PolitiFact fact checks.

PolitiFact can potentially give each of those 97 a selection of four fact checks from that group of 100, and each of them (perhaps not simultaneously) can choose one of those four, leaving PolitiFact to publish 97 out of 100 fact checks it considered doing.

That's a sham offer of editorial control. PolitiFact is selling an illusion of editorial control in a scenario like that. PolitiFact can even pick the other three later on if it chooses, ending up choosing every single one of the 100 fact checks it was considering.

Simply put, PolitiFact could give subscribers a list of items they were going to check anyway, and no one would be the wiser.

Step right up, rubes!

"Their choice won't stop us from checking other claims from the list, but it will assure that the claim they're interested in gets fact-checked."

PolitiFact, of course, is left free to manipulate the offer behind the scenes to make it completely insignificant. Kind of like that carnival game where you pick up a plastic duck out of the water. The carny looks at a number on the bottom of the duck and gives the contestant the prize that corresponds to the number. But since the public can't see how the prizes are numbered, the carny can give the contestant any prize the carny chooses. PolitiFact practices the same type of transparency as the carnival swindler.

"It will also give them a sense of our process."

One wonders how that is supposed to work.



Jeff Adds:

This response from PolitiFact validates the suspicions I outlined in my previous post. PolitiFact implicitly responds to my article by stating they will not spike items unselected by donors. In doing so, they confirm the "pick a fact check" reward is pure theater, and a sham benefit.

It's also worth noting that while this $100 reward drew our attention, there is another one that is equally vague: The $25 pledge reward includes (emphasis added) "A follow and a Twitter shout out to our 180,000 followers (or a mention on Facebook)."

Unfortunately, PolitiFact doesn't specify how they determine which one you receive. For our money, however, we look forward to them informing their 180,000 Twitter followers about our existence and sincerely hope our tweets help motivate PolitiFact to become better fact checkers.

You can beat the rush and follow us on Twitter by clicking here.


Bryan adds:

There's an easy way for PolitiFact to keep this whole thing aboveboard. All it takes is a couple of quotation marks:

You "pick" what we fact check!

PolitiPimp: PolitiFact Kickstarter sells Journalism for Cash

Love that's fresh and still unspoiled, Love that's only slightly soiled,

Old love, new love, every love but true love, 

Love for sale

                                                                                            -Ella Fitzgerald

This week PolitiFact announced it had created a Kickstarter campaign to raise funds in order to cover the State of the Union address. For those not familiar with Kickstarter, it is an online fundraising site where users present an idea in the hopes of receiving financing. 

Typically, the creator offers incentives for the backers; e.g., an author seeking funds for a book may offer an autographed copy to backers who pledge a certain amount. While this incentivised system helps make Kickstarter a successful fundraising tool, it also makes it a bad idea for journalism. 

Check out one of the "rewards" PolitiFact is offering in exchange for cash:

 

Image from Twitter

A trip to PolitiFact's Kickstarter page offers slightly more information:

Image from Kickstarter

The flaws with this supposed reward are obvious, both ethically and practically.

It's hard to imagine any legitimate journalistic outlet would be willing to explicitly exchange what stories they cover, and what stories they ignore, for a specific price. Not since GOP Congressman "Duke" Cunningham's bribe list was uncovered has an offer to sell influence been so overt. By offering this reward, PolitiFact is openly encouraging the exchange of coverage for a cash gift. 

If the Koch brothers were to offer to pick up the entire $15,000 tab to cover the State of the Union address, would they be able to put the kibosh on fact checks that may turn out unfavorable to their business? 

How can a supposedly objective fact checker maintain a shred of credibility once it's offered to sell its services for a price? 

This brings us to the second problem with the fundraiser: The practical application of the rewards is impossible without performing the Pay to Play scheme described above.

As of the time of this writing, the reward to Pick a fact check has five backers. This means in order for the reward to be legitimate, each backer must receive four unique fact checks that PolitiFact is "thinking of working on." Otherwise, unless all five backers selected the same fact check, their selections would cancel the other backers selections out, meaning PolitiFact would end up checking all four items anyway. This would render a backers selection moot, or in other words: worthless.

What exactly is PolitiFact offering?

If they are in fact offering each backer four unique fact checks to choose from, then it clearly fits the definition of peddling influence and allowing those with cash to sway news coverage both in the affirmative (pick the one to check) and the negative (pick three stories to bury). 

If PolitiFact is offering up the same four fact checks to everyone that pledges $100, then the reward is meaningless because different individuals will select different items to check, meaning all four items will be checked anyway. The reward isn't really a reward at all. It's a promised benefit of the snake oil PolitiFact is hawking.

To be sure, we certainly don't begrudge PolitiFact attempting to further monetize their brand. Most journalism projects require revenue, and PolitiFact is no different. (While PFB is a noncommercial site and we fund our insignificant costs personally, Bryan's Zebra Fact Check project provides an opportunity to contribute to his efforts.) However, the idea of allowing someone to influence editorial decisions and cover up specific stories in exchange for cash is something that flies in the face of ethically sound journalism.

Depending on which way PolitiFact administers this reward, it's either pulling a scam or soliciting a bribe.

We'll add this to the list of poorly conceived decisions under Angie Holan's leadership of the PolitiFact brand. Whatever relevancy PolitiFact had left is now on sale for the low, low price of a crumpled up Benjamin.

Seems overpriced to us.



Bryan adds 

I almost hope PolitiFact gets 4 billion $100.00 pledges. 

The implications are obvious.


Update 1/6/2015: We asked PolitiFact to clarify the rewards and we wrote about their response here. 




Edit 01/02/2015: Changed "Either way" to "Depending on which way" in antepenultimate paragraph -Jeff