The bird's-eye lowdown on PolitiFact's partisan reader advocates (Updated)

Today PolitiFact announced it will publish content from two reader advocates at its PolitiFact.com website.

The announcement didn't go so well. Shortly after making the announcement PolitiFact nixed Democrat Alan Grayson's planned involvement.

The Hill reports:

Fact-checking website PolitiFact on Thursday announced that it had hired former Florida Reps. David Jolly (R) and Alan Grayson (D) as “reader advocates” before hours later nixing Grayson's hire after fierce backlash.

The dumping of Grayson aside, does this represent a sincere effort from PolitiFact to help improve its product?

Probably not, despite the we're-so-humble sales job from PolitiFact Executive Director Aaron Sharockman.

Huh. Well, we intended to link directly to PolitiFact's announcement about its new reader representatives, but it looks like PolitiFact unpublished it. We'll go with the reporting from the Hill instead, which has coincidentally also been altered since its publication: (an earlier version carried a hyperlink to PolitiFact's announcement)

The two former lawmakers had been set to critique the website’s fact-checks and provide additional insight on political issues as part of a pilot program that will run through the end of April, according to a Thursday PolitiFact post announcing the hires. The post has since been deleted.

“David and Alan are both particularly qualified, we think, to critique the work of PolitiFact, because they’ve been subject to our fact-checks as members of Congress,” PolitiFact Executive Director Aaron Sharockman wrote an his initial statement.

Well-qualified to critique the work of PolitiFact! That implies that the critiques may prove valid, right?

PolitiFact said it would learn from Jolly and Grayson, though it's hard for us to prove that now that PolitiFact is disposing of the evidence. Like a good fact-checker should, I guess.

We think PolitiFact's flirtation with reader advocates fits well with its old narrative about how it receives criticism from both sides. Getting criticized from both sides, using mumbo-jumbo logic, shows the reliability of the entity getting criticized. That's a superb narrative for PolitiFact to promote. It's certainly far better than the alternative narrative, that getting criticized by both sides means you're probably doing something wrong.

PolitiFact's founding editor, Bill Adair, did research suggesting that PolitiFact receives most of its substantive criticism from the right. Will PolitiFact allow such research to impact its choice of which narrative to promote? We doubt it.

We captured images from Sharockman's Twitter feed--ones he had so far elected not to delete. The one at the top pretty much shows PolitiFact's thinking behind this experiment. It's not about improving the product. It's about encouraging the public to trust in the existing product.

Note that PolitiFact's experiment was only slated to run through April 2018. Three months. If PolitiFact detects signs that people are trusting it less during the experiment, it will terminate the experiment.

Does that sound like a sincere effort to improve the product? Or more like a cynical ploy intended to trick people into trusting PolitiFact?

How many times do we have to say it? One gains trust by proving trustworthy. One proves one's trustworthiness through accuracy and transparency.

Making published works entirely disappear is not transparency.



Jeff adds:


We wonder what it says about PolitiFact that they considered Grayson representative of a conventional Democrat voice.

We'd also like to congratulate the fact checkers on selecting conservative powerhouse David ... uh ... *checks notes* ... Jolly.

We're not surprised that PolitiFact's ill-advised attempt to gain credibility resulted in more of the same deception we've come to expect. For example, un-publishing articles is somehow a sign of trustworthiness?

For years we've said PolitiFact would benefit from an inside critic of their work and suggested most of their obvious blunders would have been prevented with a heterodox voice on staff. On its face the notion of "reader advocates" seems like a step in that direction, until you realize it's just another click-seeking gimmick (Is Grayson really the top pick for any serious endeavor?).

If PolitiFact were actually sincere about gaining reader trust there's more effective ways than adding sideshow acts performed by clowns and cranks. For instance, they could unequivocally disavow their longtime use of stealth edits. That might help bring them into compliance with the International Fact Checking Network code of principles that they currently violate.

But the most obvious thing they could do to improve their image is to credibly rebut the volumes of legitimate, earnest criticism of their work. So far, PolitiFact's response to charges of bias has been to call critics "mental" or to ignore them altogether. For some reason PolitiFact does not view an honest defense of their work as a viable remedy for reader distrust.

PolitiFact's incompetent and biased editorializing has never earned credibility. Adding more clowns to the car won't change that. This "readers advocate" stunt only shows how unserious PolitiFact is about providing readers the truth.






Edit 0835PST 2/2/2018: Added word "PolitiFact" in penultimate graph -Jeff

PolitiFact and robots.txt (updated)

We were surprised earlier this week when our attempt to archive a PolitiFact fact check at the Internet Archive failed.

Saving a page to the Internet Archive has served as one of the standard methods for keeping record of changes at a website. PolitiFact Bias has often used the Internet Archive to document PolitiFact's mischief.

Webmasters have the option of instructing search engines to skip indexing content at a website through use of a "robots.txt" instruction. Historically, the Internet Archive has respected the presence of a robots.txt prohibition.

PolitiFact apparently decided to start using a limiting robots.txt recently. As a result, it's likely that none of the PolitiFact.com archived links will work for a time, either at PolitiFact Bias or elsewhere.

The good news in all of this? The Internet Archive is likely to start ignoring the robots.txt instruction in the very near future. Once that happens, PolitiFact's sketchy Web history will return from the shadows back into the light.

PolitiFact may have had a legitimate reason for the change, but our extension of the benefit of the doubt comes with a big caveat: The PolitiFact webmaster could have created an exception for the Internet Archive in its robots.txt instruction. That oversight creates an embarrassment for PolitiFact, at minimum.


Update May 18, 2017:

This week the Internet Archive Wayback Machine once again functioned properly in saving Web pages at PolitiFact.com. Links at PolitiFactBias.com to archived pages likewise function properly.

We do not know at this point whether PolitiFact created an exception for the Internet Archive (and others), or whether the Internet Archive has already started ignoring robots.txt. PolitiFact has made no announcement regarding any change, so far as we can determine.

The Cover Your Butt Cover Up: PolitiFact's Stealth Edits and Incoherent Defense of Hillary Clinton

PolitiFact's recent treatment of the Hillary Clinton email scandal has been busy and bizarre. PolitiFact issued a "Half True" rating on a Clinton claim, the FBI director poked holes in PolitiFact's story, PolitiFact stood by its "Half True" rating, then hours later reversed itself and issued a new fact check calling Clinton's claim false.

Timeline:

-July 3: A fact check by PolitiFact writer Lauren Carroll rates Clinton's claim that she "never received nor sent any material that was marked classified" on her private email server Half True (original version at the Internet Archive).

-July 5: FBI Director James Comey issues a statement effectively refuting Clinton's claims and exposing her outright falsehoods regarding the email scandal.

-July 5: After Comey's statement, PolitiFact publishes an update by Carroll laying out Comey's evidence and explaining how it undermines Clinton's claims. Despite this, Carroll says there will be no changes and affirms the original "Half True" rating.

-July 6: PolitiFact and Carroll publish an entirely new fact check on the same claim, this time rating Clinton False. PolitiFact archives a version of the "Half True" fact check.

Each iteration of Carroll's reporting has problems, so we'll address them in order:

Original July 3 Half True Fact Check:

Carroll is Clintonian in her defense of Clinton, weaving a web of wordsmithing to determine it's "Half True" Clinton did not send or receive any emails marked as classified. One of the several problems with Carroll's fact check troubles us the most:

Carroll's conclusion ignores Catherine Herridge's report last month that Clinton did in fact send an email marked classified. Carroll also fails to enlighten readers by explaining whether Clinton's emails were marked classified is moot to the overall implications of the scandal.

Carroll goes on to assert that "There is no evidence Clinton knowingly sent or received classified information" (emphasis mine). What Carroll fails to tell PolitiFact readers is that in a widely reported email exchange Clinton herself explicitly instructs an aide to intentionally remove classified markings from information before sending it to her via nonsecure methods. (1)

Apparently for PolitiFact, it's not misleading to intentionally remove classified markings and then say you didn't receive anything marked classified as a defense.


July 5 Update:

After FBI Director James Comey's "wowza" revelations, Carroll writes an update covering Comey's press conference. Like Comey, PolitiFact acknowledges Clinton's deceit. Also like Comey, PolitiFact declines to do anything about it. In light of all the evidence, PolitiFact insists Clinton's claim would remain rated "Half True."

The justification for keeping the "Half True" rating was indefensible if not incoherent (red box added for emphasis):

Again, the evidence available at the time indicated Clinton was lying. But even if we assume Comey released some new bombshell evidence, PolitiFact's excuse doesn't make sense. I pointed out on Twitter that PolitiFact's explanation seems to be that since PolitiFact didn't know Hillary Clinton was lying when she lied, she's telling the truth.

 

Clinton lied, and after Comey's statement even PolitiFact was forced to acknowledge that Clinton's claim was false, but since PolitiFact didn't have the evidence that Clinton was lying on July 3, it's a "fact" that Clinton's claim was half true. Or something.

There's circumstances where it may be legitimate to base a rating on information available at the time a claim was made, but in this case PolitiFact allows Clinton to benefit from her own deceit. Bryan pointed out in a post criticizing the update just how absurd Carroll's explanation was:

Clinton...had the very best position available to know whether she sent or received emails marked as classified. She had every reason to know the truth back in 2009-2013 as she served as secretary of state...Apparently the only reason PolitiFact gave Clinton credit for a half-truth is because Clinton lied.

Carroll's justification for keeping the rating "Half True" shows just how far PolitiFact will go to avoid giving Clinton an unfavorable rating. For PolitiFact, even acknowledging Clinton lied wasn't enough to give her a "False" rating.


July 6th False Fact Check:

The day after Comey's damaging press conference, PolitiFact scrubs its original "Half True" fact check from its website, and publishes an entirely new fact check on the exact same claim, this time rating it "False."

So what happened between PolitiFact's update and the new "False" rating? (Red box added for emphasis)

PolitiFact's justification for the new rating is at odds with its July 5 update.

Note that "the evidence FBI director James Comey presented" was cited by PolitiFact when they refused to change the Half True rating the day before! Now PolitiFact says it is the sole reason for issuing a "False" rating. Which is it?

That same evidence "was available to Clinton through her own emails" when PolitiFact rated it "Half True" in the first place.

The evidence has been available to Clinton the entire time she's been telling the lie.

We asked Lauren Carroll to explain the discrepancy on Twitter but she ignored us, as usual.

(We asked from my personal Twitter account as Carroll (like PolitiFact editors Angie Holan and Bill Adair) has blocked our PolitiFactBias account.) 

How can PolitiFact reconcile the new False fact check with Carroll's update refusing to change the "Half True" rating from the day before? 

The Cover Up:

The link to Carroll's original July 3rd Half True rating goes here. If you click through, you'll see the story has been replaced by PolitiFact's default Sorry, this page is not found Etch-a-Sketch gag PolitiFact uses when it deletes a story.


Not only is this error page partisan snark directed at Mitt Romney, it also facetiously implies a technical problem as opposed to PolitiFact intentionally deleting an article from the web.

(PolitiFact's original "Half True" rating can be found here. To PolitiFact's credit, the new "False" version of the story does link to an archived (but edited) version of the "Half True" rating.)

But what about Carroll's update from July 5, the one posted after Comey's press conference? Here's the key passage (red box added for emphasis):

Check out how that passage reads now (red box added for emphasis):

It seems that the way to reconcile PolitiFact's "False" rating with Carroll's update affirming the "Half True" rating is to simply delete it from the Web and hope nobody notices.

The change is a complete 180. The first version contradicts the second. It's also incongruous (They're changing the rating to "False," but the investigation undercuts her defense if she makes the claim again?)

There is no editor's note acknowledging the change. There is no update, no notice, no explanation indicating a change has been made.

This is a stealth edit. It deceives their readers. It's unethical journalism.

And PolitiFact does it all the time.

Think Carroll and her editors accidentally forgot to add a note indicating a change? What about the time a disingenuous liberal talking point about the Hobby Lobby decision was scrubbed out of a fact check without notice?

Is it possible the above stealth edit was the result of a misguided intern? The story was written by PolitiFact Deputy Editor Louis Jacobson, and edited by Senior Editor Angie Holan. Those are the two senior most writers at PolitiFact. Holan and Jacobson are the most influential at PolitiFact and one would think should know better. We asked Jacobson about PolitiFact's policy on stealth edits, and also brought this edit to his attention without ever getting a response.

Even minor errors are too much for PolitiFact to admit screwing up:

Sometimes the errors can be inaccurate by orders of magnitude, but no editors note, or even a change in rating is made. Bryan caught an example of this just last month and wrote about it:

A key figure in the story changed from $7.5 billion to $1.7 billion. Koster's exaggeration, by percentage, went from 20 percent to 429 percent. The new version of the story carries no correction notice, and the rating remains "Mostly True."

The reality is that PolitiFact routinely uses deceptive and opaque editing techniques to alter their stories after they've been published. So much so that we created a search tag for it: Now you see it - Now you Don't.

Much of PolitiFact's inconsistency and faulty reasoning can be attributed to their political bias or incompetence. But PolitiFact's routine use of stealth edits is inexcusable and unethical. Any reputable journalist should be embarrassed by such shenanigans, but PolitiFact has a long history of using them while also refusing to own up when they're caught red-handed.

PolitiFact embodies the disingenuousness they make their living accusing others of having. PolitiFact engages in the same type of deceptions it claims to expose.

PolitiFact is a dishonest and untrustworthy actor in the world of journalism. Their work should be recognized as the partisan hackery it is and disavowed as a reputable source.



Notes:
(1) It's possible there's a procedural argument to be made that, as the result of an executive order, Clinton had the authority to declassify information in very specific and narrow circumstances (including in the above mentioned case.) In any event, Clinton's defense that an email was not marked classified when she was the one directing it's declassification for the express purpose of sending it over nonsecure methods is grossly misleading.

More on PolitiFact's deceptive Rubio/climate correction

We've uncovered a bit more evidence of PolitiFact's dishonest correction of its climate-change hit piece on Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.).

For review, here's the correction notice PolitiFact attached to its amended article:

CORRECTION: This story was updated on May 15 to clarify that 97.1 percent of the studies that took a position on global warming agreed that there's been a negative human impact on the atmosphere; more than half the studies did not take a position. Also, the story clarifies that the 2013 report looked at studies, not individual scientists.

The original article wasn't unclear about the 2013 report. It flatly said the report indicated 97.1 percent of scientists disagree with Rubio's supposed claim (PolitiFact blew and continues to blow the reporting on what Rubio said) that humans do not contribute to climate change.

Here's how PolitiFact was publicizing the Rubio fact check on its list of stories (red oval added to draw attention to the false reporting):

PolitiFact's clarification is not a clarification.  It's a gloss on a reporting error.

Here's how the Rubio blurb appears today:

PolitiFact's original article encouraged readers to conclude that 97 percent of scientists agree the Antarctic ice shelf is collapsing because of human-caused climate change.  That's a deception far worse than the Jeep ad from the Romney campaign that PolitiFact awarded its 2012 "Lie of the Year."  And the current version remains more misleading than that Romney ad.

Gingrich/O'Malley: The Fix is In

With our previous post we took note of PolitiFact taking the unusual though not unprecedented step of unpublishing a story while preparing a revised version.

PolitiFact didn't take long to publish its update.  The new version was published the same day.  And, if readers will pardon the pun, the fix is in.

PolitiFact rated a battle of stats between one of the hosts of CNN's new "Crossfire" show, Newt Gingrich, and Maryland Governor Martin O'Malley, focusing mostly on a statement from Gingrich.  In the original version of the fact check, PolitiFact rated Gingrich "False."  We find a relic of the original rating in the text of the new version:

One of the disputes focused on the two states’ population growth, with co-host Newt Gingrich suggesting that Texas was growing and Maryland shrinking because of their economic performance.

Originally, PolitiFact thought Gingrich was saying Texas' population had grown while Maryland's shrank.  Since both states grew, PolitiFact gave Gingrich the "False" rating.  Here's PolitiFact's telling of what Gingrich said:

Gingrich: "Let me ask you this. As an objective fact, in the five years you've been governor, Texas has gained 440,000 people. According to the U.S. Census, Maryland has lost 20,000. Now, if we're having all this upward trajectory, why is Texas doing 22 times better in population migration over the last five years than Maryland?"

In context, Gingrich makes clear he's talking about population migration, not population growth.  Granted, one might initially think he was talking about population growth since he doesn't specify population migration until the end.  That's a good excuse for O'Malley responding with stats that don't fit Gingrich's question, but it's a poor excuse for fact checkers having more time to consider context.

In the new version of its fact check PolitiFact upgraded Gingrich to "Half True."

Why "Half True"?  Supposedly because of this:

Essentially, they’re both right -- they just used different measurements. O’Malley is right if you use overall population figures, while Gingrich is right if you look at migration from other states. We’ll split the difference and call this one Half True.

They're both right, but Gingrich gets a "Half True" because O'Malley is right about a different figure.  PolitiFact apparently splits the difference between Gingrich's "True" and O'Malley's "True" and Gingrich gets a "Half True" as a result.

Does it make any sense at all to lower Gingrich's rating because O'Malley offered a competing statistic that was also true?  We're not seeing it.

This looks like nothing less than a post-hoc rationalization for not doing a full reversal and giving Gingrich a "True" rating.  To justify a lower rating PolitiFact should explain something about the missing context we need in order to understand what Gingrich was saying.

PolitiFact unpublishes its judgment of the Gingrich/O'Malley match on CNN

The title says it all.  PolitiFact's article, judging by PolitiFact's Twitter feed, lasted about an hour.  PolitiFact, so far as we can tell, only informed its Twitter audience about the status of the article:  

We got some new evidence on the O'Malley-Gingrich Crossfire exchange. We've taken down our report while we evaluate.
— PolitiFact (@PolitiFact) September 20, 2013

Those trying to link to the article via PolitiFact's Facebook page get a "Page not found" message.

This has happened before.  It's past time for PolitiFact to come up with a better method for handling these situations.

We'll look forward to comparing the old and new versions of the article, of course.

Flub & Scrub: Mitch McConnell edition, Part II

On May 28 PolitiFact published a new version of its May 24 fact check of Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.).

It's mostly bad, but we'll start with the good.

The good

PolitiFact republished its first version of the story and archived it while publishing a new version.  PolitiFact improved its reporting in the new version by responding to criticism from healthcare expert Michael F. Cannon of the Cato Institute.  Cannon noted that HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius sent a potentially intimidating letter to America's Health Insurance Plans:

An HHS spokesman told PolitiFact that the letter was in response to insurance companies using Obamacare as an excuse to raise premiums, and that the law gave the agency the authority to scrutinize excessive premium increases and require justifications from insurance companies. But we find Cannon's interpretation more accurate. The letter chastised the insurers for anti-Obamacare messages and threatened them with regulatory action.

Basely largely on Cannon's argument and the AHIP letter, PolitiFact upgraded its ruling from "Mostly False" to "Mostly True."

The bad

In its "Editor's note" preceding the new version of its McConnell fact check, PolitiFact blamed its failure on McConnell's office (bold emphasis added):

Editor's note: This item was initially published May 24, 2013, as a Mostly False because of the limited supporting information we received Sen. Mitch McConnell's office. The office cited a letter sent to Humana, a government contractor for Medicare Advantage. We found that letter provided relatively little support for the senator's claim and rated it Mostly False.

PolitiFact's failure was not the fault of McConnell's office.  We pointed out in our previous post that PolitiFact omitted key information from its original fact check--information readily available from a Government Accountability Office report that PolitiFact itself cited in the original reporting.  We failed to credit PolitiFact with its fractional disclosure of the key information:

[T]he Humana mailing prompted CMS to send a memo to all other Medicare Advantage and Part D contractors, warning them "to suspend potentially misleading mailings to beneficiaries about health care and insurance reform."

That doesn't sound so much like a "gag order," does it?  But the GAO report related a different account (bold emphasis added):

Although CMS's actions generally conformed to its policies and procedures, the September 21, 2009, memorandum instructing all MA organizations to discontinue communications on pending legislation while CMS conducted its investigation was unusual.

Note the difference between suspending "potentially misleading mailings" with "communications on pending legislation."  GAO uses language like the latter twice in its report.

But what about the version PolitiFact quotes?  All the CMS did was ask MA insurers to stop potentially misleading mailings.  Right?

Most likely the GAO has it right.  PolitiFact quoted from a CMS press release announcing the Sept. 21, 2009 memo, not the memo itself.  The press release does not appear to use language directly from the memo.  PolitiFact presents the press release quotation as though it comes from the memo.  The CMS press release does not express the type of policy the GAO highlighted in its report.  PolitiFact blew the reporting.

The new version of the McConnell fact check doesn't even mention the CMS memo or the GAO report (the latter remains among the sources listed on the sidebar).  The CMS memo, based on the GAO report detailing its instructions, serves as the best evidence supporting McConnell's claim.


We applaud PolitiFact for keeping the original version of the article available to the public, even if the posting followed a disappointing delay.  It should be a simple matter to archive the post as soon as the decision was made to replace it.  The original page URL could link to the archived version, explain why it was archived and assure the reader a new version is in the works.

We condemn PolitiFact for blaming its poor reporting on McConnell's office and for publishing a new version that's almost as defective as the first version.  Certainly the new "Mostly True" rating appropriately gives McConnell more credit, but it's inexcusable for journalists to simply leave out easily accessed information that supports McConnell.  That's just poor journalism.


Correction May 29, 2013:  Fixed title to agree with original title (added "Mitch" and reversed "Scrub" with "Flub") aside from the "Part II."

Flub & Scrub: Mitch McConnell edition

[Also see "Flub & Scrub:  Mitch McConnell edition Part II"]

On Friday May 24 PolitiFact posted a fact check of Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.).  I won't quote from it because PolitiFact, perhaps only temporarily, has scrubbed the story from its website with apparently only an announcement on Twitter in explanation:

We're revising our fact-check on Sen. McConnell's claim on health insurers. New item will be posted later today.

PolitiFact later tweeted that it would publish the revised item next week.  We'll see.

So what happened?

PolitiFact rated "Mostly False" a claim from McConnell that HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius had forbidden insurance companies from sending information to policyholders about the effects of Obamacare.  Then Michael F. Cannon happened.  Cannon sent out a tweet of his own:

You forgot this ow.ly/lmRNK MT @politifact: Ins co's told not to tell about Obamacare impact. Mostly False ow.ly/lmS5U
— Michael F. Cannon (@mfcannon) May 24, 2013

Cannon's URL led to his 2010 article "Secretary Sebelius Slips on the Brass Knuckles," where he detailed Sebelius' demands that insurers not communicate to policyholders information about the Affordable Care Act she considered false or misleading.

I ran across the McConnell rating on PolitiFact's Facebook page that afternoon, well after Cannon had tweeted about it.  I spot-checked the story as I sometimes do.  The story claimed a GAO report said the HHS office "in general" acted properly in responding to what it regarded as a misleading taxpayer-funded message the insurer Humana sent out to Medicare Advantage policyholders.

I looked at the report.  I confirmed that PolitiFact reported more-or-less accurately that the report "in general" found nothing amiss in the handling of situation.

But I also found a significant caveat PolitiFact failed to mention (bold emphasis added):

Although CMS’s actions generally conformed to its policies and procedures, the September 21, 2009, memorandum instructing all MA organizations to discontinue communications on pending legislation while CMS conducted its investigation was unusual. Officials from the MA organizations and CMS regional offices that we interviewed told us they were unaware of CMS ever directing all MA organizations to immediately stop an activity before CMS had determined whether that activity violated federal laws, regulations, or MA program guidance. When asked about this directive, officials from CMS’s central office stated that, given the degree of potential harm to beneficiaries, the action was appropriate for the circumstances.

A source PolitiFact cited provided information supporting McConnell's claim.  And PolitiFact didn't mention it.

I posted this evidence to PolitiFact's Facebook page, arguing that PolitiFact's story was more misleading than McConnell's statement.

As it happens, PolitiFact scrubbed its Facebook page of the link to the scrubbed article at its main website.  So those Facebook comments are gone along with PolitiFact's wall post about its McConnell article.  Mostly gone, that is.  We have a few screen captures.

I argue that a reporter's background knowledge and ideology predispose the reporter to make mistakes of this type--missing obvious evidence mentioned in a source document--in cases where that ideology is threatened or attacked.  This applies even if journalists otherwise keep their ideology secret.

This was a big mistake.  Journalistic organizations do not lightly pull entire articles from a website.  Count it as yet another evidence helping to show PolitiFact's liberal bias.

And now we'll get another opportunity to gauge PolitiFact's transparency as it deals with a big mistake.  The past record isn't particularly good.


Addendum 5/27/2013

J.D. points out something that helps cinch the stink factor on PolitiFact's move to unpublish.

The article I provided about unpublishing stories includes quoted material from Craig Silverman.  Silverman works for the Poynter Institute, which owns the Tampa Bay Times and PolitiFact.

Here's Silverman in his Poynter Institute "Regret the Error" column dealing with issue of pulling a story offline (leading off with a quotation from the Washington Post):

* We should never “unpublish” stories from the Web. Once a story is up, however, the content can be removed with the approval of a senior editor. In those rare cases when we remove the content of a story from the page, it must be replaced with an editor’s note explaining the reason for the deletion. For example if an embargo has been broken, the note would read: “Editors’ Note: This article was published inadvertently and has been removed.”

This is the right standard when it comes to unpublishing. First of all, you try to never unpublish. But if you do have to remove content, be sure to publish an explanation/apology at the same URL.

Why doesn't PolitiFact follow Poynter Institute-recommended standards for unpublishing a story?

Here's what I don't want to see:  "We did follow our guidelines.  We published an explanation/apology to the same URL.  A few days after we unpublished."


Meh.

http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2013/may/24/mitch-mcconnell/mitch-mcconnell-says-hhs-put-gag-order-insurers-ab/

Edit 5/28/13: Corrected "Friday May 25" to "Friday May 24"-Jeff

The trouble with the disappearance of the original "Julia" fact check

Earlier this week, PolitiFact published a fact check of the Medicare portion of the Obama campaign's "Life of Julia" Web ad.

Hours later, PolitiFact scrubbed the fact check from its website.   A message appeared on PolitiFact's Facebook page saying that the article was "unpublished" so that PolitiFact could address reader criticisms.

PolitiFact took a big step backward this week with its transparency.  In past instances PolitiFact archived the flawed version of a story.  That was a good policy.

The new approach is puzzling.  It isn't hard at all to find guidelines for journalistic ethics strongly discouraging the removal of a whole online story.

What happened? 

Did PolitiFact institute a new policy?  Did a person handling Web content act without approval from up above?  The former appears more likely given the Facebook announcement.

PolitiFact's actions did mitigate some of the ethical black clouds.  The story was not permanently deleted.  The new version carries a "CORRECTION" notice in keeping with PolitiFact's statement of standards and it explains the differences between the old version of the story and the new version (just trust 'em!).

However, the new policy is not likely to assist PolitiFact in building an image of reliability.

As for the "Julia" fact check itself, a review will appear before long at Sublime Bloviations.

PolitiFact unpublishes "Julia" fact check (Updated)

Whoa, Nelly.

PolitiFact today took the unusual step of taking down a fact check of the Obama campaign's "Julia" Web ad.

This is about the only Web evidence left from the story after it was scrubbed from the PolitiFact website:

The link goes to one of PolitiFact's clever bad link pages for now.

PolitiFact's Facebook page had this to say:

Some readers have raised questions about our latest item on Medicare and Julia. We've unpublished it while we look at them.

Jeff and I put forth a few digs on the issue of journalistic ethics on the Facebook page.  Other than that we're pretty much holding our fire until we see where this goes.


Update May 23, 2012:  PolitiFact's Twitter feed contains a bit more information:

Would @MittRomney replace Medicare with "nothing but a voucher"? That's not what his plan says. False: http://ow.ly/b5hah

 This looks like a rating that some felt was too harsh on President Obama.  The explanation for unpublishing (if we even get one) may prove more entertaining than the new version of the story.

Hot Air: "PolitiFact Goes to the Dogs"

This week PolitiFact flexed their Pulitzer-sized muscle by...copying and pasting.

Our fact-finding friends decided the hubbub surrounding our commander-in-chief's canine cuisine wasn't worthy of a fact check, but wanted to weigh in on it anyway. What better way to put the issue "In Context" than to simply reprint the passage from Obama's book? Karl over at Hot Air was quick to Spot spot the ruse:

Although the heart of PolitiFact is the Truth-O-Meter, which they use to rate factual claims. [sic] author Louis Jacobson assigned no rating to the seemingly straightforward question of whether Obama ate dog.

Karl's post is well worth the read, but I think his buddy Ace summed it up nicely on Twitter:

Image from Twitter

After receiving several criticisms on Twitter about being unable to determine what is a widely acknowledged fact, PolitiFact attempted to reframe the article as simply putting the issue "In Context":

Image from Twitter

That defense falls flat. Check out how PolitiFact (originally) headlined the article:

(Image from PolitiFact's Facebook page)

Did Obama eat dog in Indonesia? The question mark implies doubt. The only thing missing here is PolitiFact's gimmicky Truth-O-Meter graphic. The offending headline has since been scrubbed from the website and replaced with the more benign heading: "In context: Obama's comments on eating dog in Indonesia." Of course, no editor's note or mention of the change is provided. (The question in question is still up on PolitiFact's Facebook page, but links to a version of the story with the updated headline).

John Sexton over at Breitbart describes the trouble with the transmuted title:

Ace of Spades began questioning what exactly Politifact was suggesting with their headline shortly after the story appeared. Is there some doubt about the dog-eating story? If so, why not offer a ruling? And if there's actually no doubt, why write a factcheck piece at all? What does "context" actually add in this case? Either Obama ate dog or he didn't.

Friday afternoon, Politifact rewrote their headline. As you can see, it now reads "In context: Obama's comments on eating dog in Indonesia." No more question mark, which is presumably their way of saying the story is true. And yet, we still get no "true" ruling. And there is still no explanation of what the context adds to this discussion.

But headline hijinks aren't the only problems with this article. Karl goes on to point out that PolitiFact has not shied away from animal related claims in the past:

More significantly, PolitiFact’s responses ignore their much more relevant track record in this particular area. For example, PolitiFact rated the story about the Romneys transporting the family dog on the roof of their car as “Mostly True.” And PolitiFact rated the story about former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee frying squirrels in a popcorn popper simply “True.”

In all fairness to PolitiFact, they have indeed rated Obama on a dog claim:

(Image from PolitiFact.com)

Awww...

The bottom line is PolitiFact failed to provide any context that wasn't already widely available. The one angle of the story they could have clarified was whether or not eating dog meat was customary (or even common practice) in Indonesia at the time of the incident. But if you thought that kind of context would be provided by the Pulitzer-winning outfit in a feature they call "In Context", you'd be wrong. Instead, we're forced to rely on the word of those biased extremists over at Breitbart to do the legwork PolitiFacter Louis Jacobson was too busy to do:

A diplomatic source close to the Indonesian delegation in the U.S. confirms that while dog is sometimes eaten in Indonesia, it is done so very rarely. “Obama had to go hunting for dog meat,” the source, who didn’t want to be identified, told me.

“I don’t know of anyone who eats it and frankly, I’m a little offended you would ask.”
Breitbart.com scoured Indonesian cook books. Not one mentions ways to prepare dog.

PolitiFact's latest "In Context" article was little more than a device for them to delicately acknowledge a popular and controversial issue without actually having to take a position on it. People who claim to be objective servants of fact should be unconcerned with perception. But PolitiFact are not those people. They didn't sort out the truth of anything or even put anything in context. They punted. Their Obama eats dog article was an evasion. Readers should expect more of the same in the coming months.

PolitiGaffe: Of barrels and gallons

OregonLive.com published the following letter (or e-letter) from alert reader "oregondriver":

While you are so quick to find fault with Sarah Palin, you seem to have your facts mixed up in the "PolitiFact.com" article on page A2 of this Sunday's Oregonian: "Palin claim about Obama and oil isn't real, baby, real! In the fourth column you printed: "So a drop in oil production of 130,000 barrels a day in the Gulf of Mexico would mean an additional 130,000 gallons a day from imports." (Emphasis added is mine.) Notice, you cannot replace a barrel of oil with a gallon of oil! Please, before you show disrespect for a person, please make sure that you have all of the "PolitiFact"s correct, otherwise it just another example of media bias without cleaning up after yourself.

That's a good catch--130,000 barrels a day means 130,000 gallons per day to make it up in imports? And while that may seem like an easy gaffe to make, remember that the underlying PolitiFact article hinged on Palin's use of the word "day" versus "year".

The PolitiFact story now reads "barrels" in both instances.  Perhaps "oregondriver" was mistaken?

Not according to Google cache (click to enlarge; highlights are a product of the phrase-specific search):

PolitiFact made no mistake, however.  We know this because when PolitiFact makes a mistake they correct it and place an editor's note in the story:

When we find we've made a mistake, we correct the mistake.

• In the case of a factual error, an editor's note will be added and labeled "CORRECTION" explaining how the article has been changed.
• In the case of clarifications or updates, an editor's note will be added and labeled "UPDATE" explaining how the article has been changed.
• If the mistake is significant, we will reconvene the three-editor panel. If there is a new ruling, we will rewrite the item and put the correction at the top indicating how it's been changed.

With no such editor's note inserted into the article, we know PolitiFact is above the type of honest mistakes and "gotcha"-type flubs they chronicle.


Note: Bryan deserves credit for the research and the bulk of the writing for this post-Jeff
Update 6/10/11: Added day/year clarification in second paragraph-Jeff