Glenn Youngkin and PolitiPedant Virginia

PolitiFact's penchant for pedantry justly earns it the derisive nickname "PolitiPedant."

Ready for another example? Let's go!

Youngkin claimed he won cities no Republican had won before in Virginia. Obviously a fact checker needs to find a reasonable definition of "city" to fact check Youngkin's claim.

PolitiFact's method credits the state of Virginia with 38 cities. Does that seem low? There's justification for it, even if it's the wrong justification for this fact check. We charge PolitiFact with failing to give readers anything approaching an adequate explanation.

The Independent City

Virginia has an unusual feature regarding its cities. PolitiFact mentions it casually, without explanation, as it sets up its fact-finding:

GOP results in Virginia cities

Youngkin won 14 of Virginia’s 38 independent cities: Bristol; Buena Vista; Chesapeake; Colonial Heights; Covington; Galax; Hopewell; Lynchburg; Norton; Poquoson; Radford; Salem; Virginia Beach and Waynesboro.

In its summary section PolitiFact said "Youngkin won 14 of Virginia's 35 cities in that [2021--ed.] election." Did Virginia have 38 or 35 independent cities in 2021? We expect PolitiFact will fix that inconsistency as though it was a typographical error. But we'll focus on the key term "independent cities," which PolitiFact does not explain to its readers.

There are 41 independent cities in the United States. Virginia counts as home to 38 of them.

So, what is an independent city? It's a city independent of the county (or counties?) in which it is located:

Virginia’s thirty-eight incorporated cities are politically and administratively independent of the counties with which they share borders, just as counties are politically and administratively independent of each other.

In Virginia, unlike the other 49 states, any city that isn't an independent city wears the official designation "town," regardless of its size. In Virginia, a town may be larger than an independent city. That runs counter to the typical understanding of the respective words "city" and "town." Cities, according to the typical definitions, exceed towns in size.

Youngkin in Context 

Was Youngkin using Virginia's understanding of "city" when he addressed his New York audience? We judge there's little reason to think so. Yes, Youngkin himself, as governor of Virginia, must possess some awareness of Virginia's unusual technical standard for cities. But should Youngkin expect this audience to share that understanding? That seems like a stretch.

In the end, Youngkin isn't precluded from using the more common definition of "city" when he mentions cities in Virginia, especially to an outside audience. Many towns in Virginia fit the definition of "city" understood in other states, New York included.

PolitiFact doesn't waste any words at all on that possibility. Why? 

For the journalistic team at PolitiFact Virginia, Virginia's particular approach to defining cities may count as second nature. That may have blinded the team to alternate possibilities. Or, PolitiFact may have stuck with Virginia's narrow definition of "city" to simplify its fact-finding. It's easier to check the list of independent cities to test Youngkin's claim than to check the list of independent cities plus towns-that-may-reasonably-fit-the-usual-definition-of-cities.

But a fact checker that checks facts using methods of convenience over methods of accuracy does not count as much of a fact checker. Maybe Youngkin won no cities that hadn't been won before by a Republican. We do not plan to fact check that. We'll simply point out that PolitiFact Virginia's fact check uses an unacceptable approach to the problem.

PolitiFact should have explained Virginia's unusual approach to designating cities, at minimum, if it failed to properly fact check Youngkin's claim according to the typical definition of "city."

Oversights such as these are what we should expect of biased fact checkers. And that's what we see from PolitiFact on a regular basis.

Gender Pay Gap Shenanigans from PolitiFact Virginia

PolitiFact has a long history of botching gender wage gap stories, often horrifically.

PolitiFact Virginia's March 13, 2019 treatment of the subject does nothing improve the reliability of PolitiFact's reporting on the topic.

It's not true that women earn 80 percent of the pay men earn doing the same job, though Democrats proclaim otherwise from time to time. And that's probably what Scott did, using "similar" in its role as a synonym for "same."

PolitiFact was apparently very eager to use the technique of charitable interpretation--most likely because Scott is a Democrat. Republicans rarely receive the benefit of that feature of competent fact-checking from PolitiFact.

We're partial to the using charitable interpretation when appropriate, but PoltiFact Virginia ends up running data through the confirmation bias filter in its effort to bail out Scott.

We'd judge Scott's use of the term "similar" as an ambiguity. PolitiFact Virginia calls it "nuance":

Scott’s statement, however, is nuanced. He says women get 80 percent pay for doing "similar" jobs as white men, which is different than saying the "same" job as men.

PolitiFact Virginia apparently skipped the step of checking the thesaurus to see if the terms "similar" and "same" may be used interchangeably. They can. The two terms have overlapping meanings, in fact.

We find it notable that PolitiFact Virginia set aside the usual PolitiFact practice of relying on explanations from spokespeople representing the figure being fact-checked.

Scott's staff said he got his numbers from sources relying on Census Bureau data.

PolitiFact Virginia:

Stephanie Lalle, Scott’s deputy communications director, told us the congressman got the statistic from separate reports published in late 2018 by the Institute for Women’s Policy Research, and the National Partnership for Women and Families.

Both reports said the statistic comes from the U.S. Census Bureau. The latest gender-gap statistics from the Bureau show in 2017 women earned 80.5 percent of what men made - the same percentage as in 2016.

PolitiFact Virginia's determination to defend Scott's statement leads it to spout statistical mumbo-jumbo. Based on apparently nothing more the Scott's "nuanced" use of the term "similar," PolitiFact Virginia tried to reverse engineer an explanation of his statistic to replace the explanation offered by Scott's staff.

What if "similar" meant broad classes of jobs, and data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics showed white men making more than women in those classes of jobs?

PolitiFact Virginia thought it was worth a shot:

Women out-earned men in three occupations: wholesale and retail buying; frontline supervisor of construction trades and extraction workers; and, as we mentioned, dining room and cafeteria attendants and bartender helpers.

Fact-checking Scott, however, requires a deeper dive. The percentages we just discussed compare the full-time weekly earnings of all women to all men in these occupations. Scott, in his statement, compared the earnings of all women to white men in similar jobs.

The BLS’s data set that compares gender pay by specific jobs does not sort men and women by race. It does, however, categorize the jobs into 29 broad fields of work and, in each of those fields, breaks down women and men by sex.

Overall in 2018, women earned 78.7 percent less than white men in the same areas of work. The comparison of women’s pay to white men’s produces a bigger gender gap than the comparison to all men. That’s because white males tend to earn more than black males.

White men out-earned women in all 29 fields of work.

Note that PolitiFact Virginia isn't really showing its work. And what it does show contains appalling mistakes.

Let's break it down piece by piece.

Piece by Piece, Step by Step

"The percentages we just discussed compare the full-time weekly earnings of all women to all men in these occupations."

Do the percentages compare the full-time weekly earnings of all women to all men in those occupations? It's hard to tell from PolitiFact's linked source document. If author Warren Fiske was talking about Table 18, as we believe, then the fact check should refer to Table 18 by name.

Looking at Table 18, it seems Fiske reasoned improperly. The table mentions 121 groups of occupations but most of occupations nested under the list headers have no estimate of a gender wage gap, entering a dash instead of a number. In the notes at the bottom of the table, BLS warns that a dash means "no data or data that do not meet publication criteria." That makes it improper to extrapolate the listed results into a nationally representative number. Nor should a fact-checker assume that the subject of the fact check had such creative reasoning in mind.

In short, using numbers from Table 18 to support Scott represents unjustifiable cherry-picking.

"Scott, in his statement, compared the earnings of all women to white men in similar jobs."

We cannot find any citation in PolitiFact Virginia's fact check that offers data addressing the racial aspect of Scott's claim. Without that data, how can the fact checker reach a reasonable conclusion about the claim?

"The BLS’s data set that compares gender pay by specific jobs does not sort men and women by race."

That's bad news for this fact check. As noted above, without the data on race there's no checking the claim.

"It does, however, categorize the jobs into 29 broad fields of work and, in each of those fields, breaks down women and men by sex."

Breaking down men and women by sex is not the same as breaking them down by race, so this "however" doesn't point the way to a solution to the problem.

"Overall in 2018, women earned 78.7 percent less than white men in the same areas of work."

The fact checkers probably meant 78.7 cents to the dollar compared to men, not 78.7 percent less (about 22 cents to the dollar). But we still do not know the source of the race-based claim. We'd love to see a clear clue from PolitiFact Virginia regarding the specific source of this claim.

"The comparison of women’s pay to white men’s produces a bigger gender gap than the comparison to all men. That’s because white males tend to earn more than black males."

This part we follow. But it doesn't help us understand how PolitiFact can claim how white men out-earned women in all 29 fields of work in the BLS data.

"White men out-earned women in all 29 fields of work."

Based on what? We just went through PolitiFact's argument step by step. There's no reasoning in the fact check to justify it, and we can't find any citation that appears to lead to a justifying document.

Summary

PolitiFact failed to offer information justifying its key data point ("White men out-earned women in all 29 fields of work). It failed to show how cherry-picking that information, even if legitimately sourced, would justify Scott's statement in the context of "fair pay" legislation. And it simply blundered with the claim that women earned 78.7 percent less than white men (in same areas of work or otherwise).

Making the bad news worse, we could write another article about the problems in PolitiFact Virginia's wage gap story without repeating the same points.

Update March 14, 2019

After we contacted PolitiFact Virginia on March 13, 2019 it corrected the "78.7 percent less" mistake.

PolitiFact Virginia attached no editor's note to the story indicating either a correction or clarification.

Note this from PolitiFact's policy on corrections:

Errors of fact – Errors of fact that do not impact the rating or do not change the general outlook of the fact-check receive a mark of correction at the bottom of the fact-check.

The text of the fact-check is updated with the new information. The correction states the correct information that has been added to the report. If necessary for clarity, it repeats the incorrect information. Corrected fact-checks receive a tag of "Corrections and updates."

Typos, grammatical errors, misspellings – We correct typos, grammatical errors, misspellings, transpositions and other small errors without a mark of correction or tag and as soon as they are brought to our attention.

So we're supposed to believe writing "earned 78.7 percent less" instead of "78.7 percent as much" counts as one of the following:

• typo
• grammatical error
• misspelling
• transposition
• other small error

Who buys it?


Update Aug. 5, 2019

On some unknown date, PolitiFact Virginia got around to adding a correction notice to its fact check article:

Correction: Women earned 78.7 percent as much as white men, overall, in 22 broad fields of work in 2018, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data. An earlier version of this story misstated the statistics.

The story does not, however, appear on PolitiFact's supposedly exhaustive list of corrected or updated stories (there's no subject tag on the story that would result in it appearing on that list).

PolitiFact: It's 'Half True' and 'Mostly True' that President Obama doubled the debt

Twitterer Ely Brit (@RealElyBritt) tweeted out this comparison of past PolitiFact ratings on March 17, 2018:

Does @PolitiFact have #TrumpDerangementSyndrome? @PolitiFactBias

It sure looks like it ... pic.twitter.com/m4CqQ8JENp

— Ely Brit 🇺🇸 (@RealElyBritt) March 18, 2018

For the Trump fact check, PolitiFact came down hard on The Donald for placing blame too squarely on President Obama when Congress controls the federal government's purse strings.

On the other hand, it's hard to see how Sen. Paul eases up on placing the blame, unless he gets a bipartisan pass for blaming President Bush for the earlier debt increase.

Apart from that, neither Trump nor Paul received a "True" rating because Congress shares the blame for government spending.

Right, PolitiFact?

O-kay, then.



Correction 3/18/2018: Corrected transposed misspellings of Ely Brit's name. Our apologies to Brit. 
Correction 3/18/2018: Commenter YuriG pointed out that I (Bryan) used "deficit" in the headline, conflicting with the content of the post. Changed "deficit" to "debt" in the headline. Our thanks to YuriG for taking the time to point out the problem.

PolitiFact Virginia vanishes an underlying point

Does PolitiFact have principles?

Apparently none that represent an obstacle to reaching whatever "Truth-O-Meter" rating is desired.

Today's example comes from PolitiFact Virginia's Aug. 15, 2016 fact check of Democratic Vice-presidential candidate Tim Kaine. Kaine said former Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi couldn't find a place to stay in New York, so Donald Trump let him put a tent on the Trump Estate.

Before we proceed, let us review PolitiFact's definition of its "True" rating on its trademarked "Truth-O-Meter":

TRUE – The statement is accurate and there’s nothing significant missing.

Kaine said nobody would let Gadhafi stay in New York, then said Trump let Gadhafi set up a tent on his estate. So was Kaine saying Gadhafi stayed at the estate in an elaborate tent?

Isn't that Kaine's implication?

PolitiFact apparently thinks so, otherwise the caption under the "Truth-O-Meter" serves no useful purpose: "Gadhafi a no-show." Isn't it significant that Gadhafi did not end up staying at the estate despite the appearance that's what Kaine implied?

Making PolitiFact Virginia look even more incompetent, the "True" rating overlooks Kaine's primary underlying argument, which PolitiFact understood well enough to use as its lead paragraph:

Tim Kaine says Donald Trump has a fondness for dictators, including the late Libyan leader Col. Moammar Gadhafi.

Kaine's evidence that Trump has a fondness for dictators, including Gadhafi, is Trump renting Gadhafi space at the Trump estate--space that Gadhafi apparently did not visit. PolitiFact Virginia, in fact, reported that Gadhafi found a place to stay in New York, even though Kaine said he could not find a place to stay:

Gadhafi ended up staying at Libya’s U.N. mission in midtown Manhattan.

Kaine said Gadhafi could not find a place to stay in New York, implying the Trump estate was the exception. That was false.

Kaine implied Gadhafi stayed at the Trump estate. That was false.

Kaine said Trump allowed Gadhafi to set up a tent at the Trump estate. That was apparently true, but used in a misleading way.

Kaine implied that Trump's arrangement with Gadhafi shows Trump holds an affinity for dictators.

Don't we need stronger evidence than this?

Nah. This is PolitiFact. What Kaine said was "True" and nothing significant was left out.

Perhaps PolitiFact Virginia simply mistakes objectionable fact-checking for objective fact-checking?


Update Sept. 17, 2016: Afters

We're updating this post to add the "tweezers or tongs" tag, with a few words of explanation.

"Tweezers or tongs" denotes stories where PolitiFact has the option of setting a narrow or wide focus on its topic. The nature of the story focus may play a critical role in the final rating. PolitiFact might give a claim a "Mostly False" rating if it contains a "grain of truth." Or, PolitiFact might instead cut the grain of truth like a tiny diamond and present it as a tiny sparkling ring of truth in stories like the one PolitiFact Virginia wrote about Democrat Tim Kaine.

Additional note:  We appreciate the prominent link to the story from Newsbusters, which has its own expanded take. It's worth a read.

The 2015 "Pants on Fire" bias for PunditFact and the PolitiFact states

Earlier this week we published our 2015 update to our study of PolitiFact's bias in applying its "Pants on Fire" rating.

The premise of the research, briefly, is that no objective criterion distinguishes between a "False" rating and a "Pants on Fire" rating. If the ratings are subjective then a "Pants on Fire" rating provides a measure of opinion and nothing more.

In 2015 the states provided comparatively little data. State franchises, with a few exceptions, seem to have a tough time giving false ratings. The state PolitiFact operations also tend to vary widely in the measurement of the "Pants on Fire" bias. PolitiFact Wisconsin's "Pants on Fire" ratings proportionally treat Democrats more harshly than Republicans, for example.

PolitiFact Florida: PolitiFact Florida's data roughly matched those from PolitiFact National and PunditFact. Those three franchises are the most closely associated with one another since all are based in Florida and tend to share writing and editorial staff. In 2015 the PoF bias number was within a range of five hundredths for each. That's so close that it's suspicious on its face. All three gave Republicans more false ratings than Democrats (4.83, 3.50, 2.43).

PolitiFact Georgia: Though PolitiFact Georgia has operated for a good number of years and has in the past provided us with useful data, that wasn't the case in 2015. PolitiFact Georgia's false ratings went to apparently non-partisan claims.

PolitiFact New Hampshire: PolitiFact New Hampshire historically provides virtually nothing helpful in terms of the PoF bias number. But false ratings for Democrats outnumbered false ratings for Republicans (blue numerals indicate that bias).

PolitiFact Rhode Island: PF Rhode Island rated two statements from Democrats "False."

PolitiFact Texas: PF Texas gave Republicans false ratings an astonishing 8 times more than Democrats. But at the same time, PF Texas produced a PoF bias number harming Democrats. The key to both figures? PF Texas only doled out two false ratings to partisan Democrats. Both were "Pants on Fire" ratings. An entire year with no "False" ratings for Democrats? Texas' previous low for "False" ratings was four (twice).

PolitiFact Virginia: PF Virginia achieved perfect neutrality in terms of our PoF bias number. That's the meaning of a 1.00 score. The "Pants on Fire" claims as a percentage of all false claims was equal for Republicans and Democrats.

PolitiFact Wisconsin: PF Wisconsin continued its trend of giving Democrats the short end of the PoF bias measure. That's despite giving Republicans a bigger share than usual of the total false ratings. The 5.00 selection bias number was easily the all-time high for PF Wisconsin, besting the old mark of 1.57 back in 2011.

PunditFact: PunditFact, we should note, produces data we class in our "Group B." PunditFact tends not to rate partisan candidates, officeholders, partisan appointees or party organizations. It focuses more on pundits, as the name implies. We consider group B data less reliable as a measure of partisan bias than the group A data. But we do find it interesting that PunditFact's data profile lines up pretty closely with the most closely associated PolitiFact entities, as noted above. That finding proves consistent with the idea that PolitiFact ratings say something about the viewpoint of the ones giving the ratings.

PolitiFact defines "bailout" (Updated)

On Dec. 1, 2015, PolitiFact handed down a "Mostly False" rating on Marco Rubio's claim he prevented a $2.5 billion bailout of health insurance companies under ObamaCare.

PolitiFact's ruling hinged partly on its definition of "bailout." PolitiFact said giving the insurance companies money to help keep them in business wasn't really a bailout:

But is it really a bailout?  Several experts told us no, stressing that a bailout usually refers to a program used to save a company after the fact, not a mechanism in place to deal with a problem that everyone assumes could occur.

Are these experts engaging in a "No True Scotsman" fallacy? Or did PolitiFact do it for them by torquing the paraphrase? Perhaps PolitiFact used leading interview questions?

We were curious about PolitiFact's history of defining the term "bailout."

April 21, 2010: PolitiFact

Early on, "bailout" might have meant anything to PolitiFact:

A big challenge in analyzing Reid's statement, or any like it, is figuring out what exactly the word "bailout" means.

"It is almost impossible to pin politicians down on this one because 'bailout' has no clear meaning," said Douglas Elliott, a fellow with the Brookings Institution, a public policy think tank. "It could cover a very wide range of things, some of which involve taxpayer money and some don't, and some of which are traditional central banking or deposit insurer roles and others of which are novel."

PolitiFact decided Dodd-Frank didn't prevent bailouts in this fact check, but the definition of "bailout" was not critical to the ruling.

Oct. 27, 2010: PolitiFact Florida

Any "rescue from financial distress" qualifies as a bailout to us. And last year, the National Association of Home Builders did indeed lobby Congress for — and win — a change in tax law that it argued was a "critical stimulus measure for the U.S. economy" that would provide "an infusion of monetary resources for firms struggling to retain workers and undertake economic activity."

The issue in this fact check from PolitiFact Florida was a chain email attack on parties opposing Florida's Amendment 4. Amendment 4 would have made real estate development far more difficult. It was a measure more likely supported by progressives, so PolitiFact Florida's broad definition tended to help progressives.

Oct. 29, 2010: PolitiFact Virginia

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee said a Republican was a hypocrite because his car dealership received bailout money from the "Cash for Clunkers" program. For PolitiFact Virginia, the definition of "bailout" wasn't even at issue. Apparently it's clear that "Cash for Clunkers" was a bailout program. The DCCC gets a "Half True" since PolitiFact Virginia couldn't pin down the amount received in the bailout:

But we can’t place a dollar amount on the benefit to Rigell. The ad wrongly suggests that his dealerships’ $441,000 in rebates were straight profits and there’s reason to believe Rigell’s actual gain from Clunkers was considerably smaller. So we find the claim to be Half True.

Dec. 18, 2011: PolitiFact Texas

Our sense? Taxpayers picked up built-up costs that otherwise could not be covered. It seems reasonable to call that expenditure a bailout.

The broad sense harmed Republican Rick Perry. The narrow sense would have helped him. PolitiFact Texas opted for the broad sense.

January 13, 2014: PunditFact

Conservative Pundit Charles Krauthammer foreshadowed the Rubio ruling by calling ObamaCare's risk corridor reimbursements a "huge government bailout." When asked, Krauthammer said he was using the broad definition and provided dictionary support. PunditFact decided his statement deserved treatment according to a narrower definition.

We asked Krauthammer why he called this a bailout and he said he relied on the definition from Merriam-Webster. "The act of saving or rescuing something (such as a business) from money problems," he quoted. "A rescue from financial distress."

Rescue is clearly the operative word. We looked at other definitions. The Palgrave Dictionary of Economics spoke of a rescue from "potential or actual insolvency." Investopedia had to prevent "the consequences that arise from a business's downfall."

Using the narrow definition of "bailout" as a principal justification, PunditFact rated Krauthammer's claim "Half True."

June 30, 2014: PolitiFact

If The New York Times says the Ex-Im Bank asked for a bailout in 1987 then it must be true. There's no reason to question the definition used by the Times, right? The definition was not a major issue for the fact check.

Was TARP a "Bailout" Program?

PolitiFact appears to consistently accept that the Troubled Asset Relief Program was a bailout program. But what if we applied the definition the experts suggested for the Rubio fact check?

TARP did not stop at helping out banks that were in trouble when the measure was passed. On the contrary, the measure foresaw banks running into trouble in the near future for the same reasons other banks had run into trouble.

The TARP timeline published by ProPublica makes clear the TARP program bears some key similarities to the ObamaCare features the experts would not call "bailouts."

PolitiFact Plays Games With Definitions

We've found cases where PolitiFact manipulated the definition of "bailout" resulting in unfair harm to conservatives. We found no cases where PolitiFact similarly harmed Democrats.

If anybody can find an example of the latter we missed, we'll be delighted to edit the article to include it. Drop us a line.


Update Dec. 10, 2015
We added the Jan. 13, 2014 PunditFact item, which we intended to include in the original version. Also fixed some stubborn formatting issues.

Hot Air: 'Whiplash: Politifact absolves Democrat who repeated…Politifact’s lie of the year'

Rest assured, readers: There's no lack of PolitiFact blunders to write about, merely a lack of time to get to them all. For that reason, we're grateful that we're not the only ones doing the work of exposing the worst fact checker in the biz for what it iz.

Take it away, Guy Benson:

Politifact, the heavily left-leaning political fact-checking oufit, has truly outdone itself.  The organization crowned President Obama as the 2013 recipient of its annual “lie of the year” designation for his tireless efforts to mislead Americans about being able to keep their existing healthcare plans under Obamacare.  While richly deserved, the decision came as a bit of a surprise because Politifact had rated that exact claim as “half true” in 2012, and straight-up “true” in 2008 (apparently promises about non-existent bills can be deemed accurate).

And what did PolitiFact do to outdo itself? Republican senatorial candidate Ed Gillespie ran an ad attacking Democratic rival Mark Warner over pledge not to vote for a bill that would take away people's current health insurance plans.

PolitiFact Virginia, incredibly, ruled the ad "False."

Read Benson's piece at Hot Air in full for all the gory details. The article appropriately strikes down PolitiFact Virginia's thin justification for its ruling.

Also see our past assessment of PolitiFact's preposterous maneuvering on its editorial "Lie of the Year" proclamation from 2013.

PolitiMath at PolitiFact Virginia

Guided selection?

Earlier today, we reviewed the percentage error involved in pair of PolitiFact ratings.

On July 16, PolitiFact's PunditFact rated Cokie Roberts "Half True" for a numerical claim that was exaggerated by about 9,000 percent.  PunditFact justified the rating based on Roberts' underlying argument, that the risk of being murdered in Honduras is greater than the risk in New York City.

On July 31, PolitiFact Oregon rated George Will "False for a numerical claim that was off by as much as 225 percent.  Will claimed healthcare companies.make up 13 of the top 25 employers in Oregon, and occupy the top three positions on top of that.  The former claim was off by as much as 225 percent and the latter claim was off by 300 percent or so.  PolitiFact found Oregon's largest employer was a healthcare firm.

Today we take fresh note of a July 14 fact check from PolitiFact Virginia.

PolitiFact Virginia tested the claim of Democrat Mark Sickles that 70 percent of Virginia's Medicaid budget pays for care for seniors in nursing homes.

PolitiFact Virginia said the true number was 9.7 percent.

From that number, we calculate a percentage error of 622 percent (PolitiFact can't be trusted with that calculation).

PolitiFact Virginia gives Sickles no credit for his underlying argument and rates his claim "False."


What determines whether PolitiFact rates the underlying point along with the literal claim?

How big does an error need to get before a claim warrants a "Pants on Fire" rating?


Clarification 8-14-2014:
Changed "Will claimed healthcare companies.make up 13 of the top 25, and occupy the top three positions on top of that" to Will claimed healthcare companies.make up 13 of the top 25 employers in Oregon, and occupy the top three positions on top of that."

Debatepolitics.com: A tale of two guarantees?

We've guest-posted one argument against PolitiFact from debatepolitics.org, and now it's time to highlight another. This one comes from "Zyphlin," comparing PolitiFact's rating of Obamacare-related statements from President Obama and Senate Minority Leader Eric Cantor:

Obama states "Here’s a guarantee that I’ve made. If you have insurance that you like, then you will be able to keep that insurance." He's ACTUALLY stating it as a guarantee, and Politifact gives that a "half true" and basically judges it based on their opinion of what Obama really meant.

Cantor states "The people who have health care and like it in this county are not going to be able to keep what they have." He doesn't say the word guarantee, but Politifact[']s opinion is that he is suggesting a guarantee and rate it as "mostly false."

"Zyphlin" goes on to say both Obama and Cantor made false statements.  There we don't agree.

Cantor's statement, made in an interview after the Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of the ACA's individual mandate, simply meant that Obama's promise was false.

It's important to note the parallel wording.  Cantor borrows Obama's line about people liking their health insurance, then contradicts the president's promise that those people will be able to keep their health care plans.

Obama receives a "Half True" rating.

Cantor gets a "Mostly False" rating.

It's yet another fact-checking travesty wrought by PolitiFact and PolitiFact Virginia.

PolitiFact in Mathmagic Land

A reader pointed us to yet another marvelous example that helps show how PolitiFact applies an irregular set of standards.

PolitiFact Georgia investigated Democrat state senator Vincent Fort's charge that Gov. Nathan Deal, a Republican, has appointed blacks to government positions less than 3 percent of the time.  PolitiFact said the actual number was a little over 7 percent.  So the claim was only "Half True":

The senator’s overarching claim that Deal has appointed a relatively low percentage of minorities has merit. But he was wrong by a handful of percentage points. It was based on an incomplete sampling of Deal’s total appointees.

We rate the claim Half True.

The lawmaker, state senator Vincent Fort,  received a "Half True" because of the truth of his underlying point, that the percentage of black appointees was low.  And he was wrong by "only a handful of percentage points."

Compare the treatment Fort received to Grover Norquist's fate at the hands of PolitiFact Virginia back in February.  Norquist said Virginia uses less than 1 percent of its budget surplus on roads.  The actual number was about 7 percent, so Norquist was off by a handful and committed an error of about 86 percent.  Compare that to Fort's error of about 43 percent.  Norquist's rating from PolitiFact Virginia?  "False."  Norquist received no credit at all for an accurate underlying argument that Virginia doesn't spend much of its budget surplus on roads.

Perhaps Fort could claim Deal has appointed zero blacks and still get a "Half True" from PolitiFact because of the accuracy of his same underlying point.  There's no way to know based on PolitiFact's grading system.  It's all up to the subjective impressions of PolitiFact's star chambers.

It's a crazy way to fact check.  Matt Bryant scores a touchdown!  No, it was just a field goal. Half True.


Jeff Adds:

It's hard to avoid the reality that PolitiFact is an editorial site with articles like this. The final rating is based on the editors' arbitrary standard of however much a "handful" is. Not to mention that Fort named a specific figure, 3 percent, that was unarguably wrong. Whether or not Fort's underlying argument is a good one is clearly the stuff of an editorial. His figures were incorrect, and a fact check, by definition, should be limited to that.

Then again, maybe they cut Fort some slack because they assumed he was citing figures from memory?

PolitiFact Never Rates Hyperbole Sometimes

"We don’t check opinions, and we recognize that in the world of speechmaking and political rhetoric, there is license for hyperbole."

 -Principles of PolitiFact and the Truth-O-Meter

PolitiFact doesn't rate hyperbole.

In fact, in 2007 they "decided on a policy against it."

Just don't tell that to Republican George Allen, who recently criticized Democrat Tim Kaine for his position on tax hikes:

Image from PolitiFact.com (arrow added)

Poor George Allen. No license for hyperbole for you!

Some longtime PolitiFact readers may remember back in the olden days of three months ago that Harry Reid got a pass from the gimmicky graphic:

We recognize Reid was using hyperbole, so we won't put his claim to the Truth-O-Meter.

That line sparked the following exchange on PolitiFact's Facebook page:

Mark FitzSimmons: What? Wasn't the first pants on fire Biden referring to Bush as brain-dead? How is that not recognized as hyperbole?

PolitiFact: Mark,you have a very good memory! It was after that check (and partly because of that check) that we decided on a policy against it.

As we pointed out in a previous post, on three separate occasions since January of this year, PolitiFact has given a Pants on Fire rating to statements (all by Republicans) it described as hyperbolic. Since the Biden claim that was the impetus for the anti-hyperbole policy came out, they've rated roughly 20 statements described as hyperbolic. As far as we can tell, Reid is the only one who has escaped the Truth-O-Meter due to the policy.

But PolitiFact doesn't rate hyperbole.

They have a policy against it.

Take comfort, George Allen.


Bryan adds:

The evidence suggests that Republicans are much more likely to use hyperbole without a license.

Edit: 9/28/12: Changed the word "graph" to "graphic"-Jeff

The Washington Free Beacon: "Fisking Fiske's Record"

Ordinarily we at PolitiFact Bias highlight stories that provide the best evidences of PolitiFact's liberal bias.  This post doesn't exactly do that.

A recent Washington Free Beacon story presents information it gathered about PolitiFact Virginia editor Warren Fiske's voting history.  Fiske has a history of participating mostly in Democratic Party primaries:

An influential Virginia fact-checker accused of anti-Republican bias has a history of tilting left, according to documents obtained by the Washington Free Beacon.

I'm not impressed with evidence of bias via voting records.  I agree with media critic Jay Rosen's argument that journalism's code of secrecy about political preferences has slipped into obsolescence.  For one thing, the European model of non-objective news coverage has successfully invaded the United States.  Secondly, liberals have taken over mainstream media news to the point that failing to disclose political preferences amounts to dishonesty.

In simple terms, personal preferences need not introduce bias into reporting.  A good reporter (or researcher) will set personal preferences aside or recognize the inability to remain objective.

I support making public information about Fiske's voting record, so long as it doesn't violate the privacy of the voting booth.  The public is entitled to take Fiske's personal bias into account when considering his professional work.

The problem comes when reporters and editors prove unable to separate their ideology from their reporting.  There's a good argument against PolitiFact on that score.


Jeff adds: Count me in the group of those skeptical that a writer's voting record is solid evidence of bias in their reporting. The fact that Fiske tends to vote Democrat is anecdotal, interesting, and hardly surprising, but it doesn't necessarily provide proof that his articles are biased.

For example, one doesn't need to be opposed to abortion to recognize how misleading and dishonest PolitiFact's treatment of abortion ratings have been. Serious reporters should be able to provide unambiguous data to their readers regardless of their personal inclinations.

PolitiFact's liberal bias is evident in the selection of stories and also in the evidence ignored when writing those articles. The fact that PolitiFact writers are liberals may confirm what we already suspect, but in and of itself it's small beer.

PolitiFact's most offensive lie is its presentation of itself as an objective, unbiased resource. Any newspaper, blog, or television station is inherently imbued with the reporter's or host's bias, including this blog. PolitiFact presents itself as beyond these political limitations. PolitiFact is the beautifully dressed Emperor of Objectivity, and only the lowly partisans fail to appreciate the royal dress.

If PolitiFact acknowledged that it is an editorial site, bound by the realities of personal bias, it's doubtful we would have ever started this website, and unlikely that we would have given it a second thought. The reason PolitiFact is so offensive is because it implies a certain amount of scientific authenticity is involved in their work.

Personal voting records are interesting, but the evidence of bias is more appropriately exposed through pointing out the flaws in the fact checks.

Virginia Watchdog: "State GOP criticizes PolitiFact for bias"

Virginia Watchdog takes note of the Republican Party of Virginia's critique of PolitiFact Virginia.  We at PolitiFact Bias reviewed the strengths and weaknesses of the GOP effort last month.

The story by Jon Cassidy and Kenric Ward counts as the most complete reporting yet regarding the GOP's lengthy jab at PolitiFact Virginia.  We found comments by Rick Edmonds of PolitiFact's owner, the Poynter Institute, of particular interest:

Edmonds speculated that Republicans come in for more criticism because they are the party in control of state government — not because of any built-in political bias by PolitiFact.

“Naturally, the rulings focus on the majority party,” he reasoned. “It’s also possible that one side is making more outrageous or newsworthy claims that attract attention.”

If the party in control of the government receives the most ratings then shouldn't PolitiFact National show a marked lean toward Democratic Party claims for 2009?  Democrats controlled both houses of Congress as well as the presidency. 

Edmonds' claim resists clear falsification at the state level mainly because PolitiFact mostly runs state operations in states controlled by Republicans.  And not all state operations freely allow the numbers to give the impression of bias, as we discovered from a figure associated with PolitiFact Georgia.

One wonders why Edmonds fails to mention the possibility of selection bias.


Afters:

PolitiFact Bias has improved the case against PolitiFact's impartiality with the publication of our first research project earlier this month.

The Republican Party of Virginia vs. PolitiFact Virginia

We promised to take a closer look at the Republican Party of Virginia's challenge to PolitiFact Virginia's objectivity.

The document works on some levels and not on others.  The best evidence it contains showing PolitiFact Virginia's lack of objectivity comes from anecdote and circumstantial evidence.

Open Letter

The "open letter" section comes across well, but almost immediately afterward the document suffers from accuracy issues. 

Overall Proportions

The graph of rulings by number and by party is off, as pointed out by the semi-daily clockwork accuracy of Karen Street:  The "False" column for Democrats is too short.  The document uses the correct figure for "False" rulings in determining the proportion of "False" statements attributed to Republicans but incorrectly asserts that PolitiFact "ruled disproportionately against Republicans" in that category.  The 40 percent figure used in the comparison is disproportionately low compared to the 48 percent baseline derived from the listed numbers.

Individual Proportions

The criticism based on the individual breakdown mostly rings true.  Virginia has two Democrats in the U.S. Senate.  How does ex-senator George Allen warrant more fact checks than both combined?  Complaints about the attention on House Majority Leader Eric Cantor don't carry much weight.  Cantor serves as a major voice for congressional Republicans.

The Weekend Dump

While it served as an intriguing idea to criticize PolitiFact Virginia for the timing of its stories, we were instantly skeptical of this claim.  News dumps by the government are fundamentally different from the news reporting cycle, yet the GOP document relies on the comparison.  Here's the problem:  Dumping stories over the weekend can put them in the Sunday newspaper, which is often the most widely read portion of a major newspaper.  No case is made for the significance of a weekend dump for either a daily paper or an Internet news site.  If the Richmond Times-Dispatch literally publishes the most positive Republican stories in its least popular editions then the Virginia GOP may have a legitimate gripe, but that evidence does not appear in this document.

Case Studies 1 & 2

The case studies hit the mark more often than not, pointing out a good number of times where PolitiFact Virginia used stilted reasoning to reach conclusions unfavorable to Republicans.

Comparative Case Study

The argument from the case study makes PolitiFact Virginia's actions look fishy, but it's far from conclusive without better evidence.  It does contribute to the stated aim of the letter, however.  This section is at its best when criticizing individual rulings from PolitiFact Virginia.

Appendix starting on Page 54

From Page 54 through the end of the 86-page document, the Appendix simply gives a rundown of PolitiFact Virginia's ratings without any commentary or criticism.  It's hard to see the point, other than to help produce stories about an 86-page criticism of PolitiFact Virginia.  If that was the case, the mission was accomplished.

In summary, the report scores with the anecdotes and not much else.  The presentation softens the potential impact.

The Washington Post: "PolitiFacters respond to ‘weekend dump’ allegations"

Erik Wemple of the Washingon Post delivers the third in his series following the current dust-up between the Republican Party of Virginia and PolitiFact Virginia.

Wemple, as he promised, visits the GOP's claim that the timing of PolitiFact Virginia stories appears to maximize the impact of negative stories while burying positive ones.

Wemple:

As detailed in Part One of this extensive series, the Republican Party of Virginia is claiming that PolitiFact Virginia, which is run from the offices of the Richmond Times-Dispatch, discriminates against Republican politicians in the most insidious of manners: It times positive fact-checks of Republicans for the weekends, when people aren’t logged on, and “saves” the negative stuff on Republicans for high-traffic mid-week slots. That’s the claim.

Wemple's off the mark.  The document doesn't claim that the stories are deliberately timed.  Rather, it claims that the timing of the stories yields a discriminatory result.  The discrepancy between Wemple's report and the reality of the GOP document is easy to see in the passage Wemple quotes:

Here’s a relevant excerpt from the 86-page slameroo report that the Republican Party of Virginia compiled on PolitiFact Virginia:

PolitiFact Issued Only Two “False” And One “Pants On Fire” Ruling On Republican Statements During The Weekend (Starting After 5 P.M. On Friday), Saving 37 “Mostly False,” “False,” “Pants On Fire,” And “Full Flop” Reports To Be Issued Between Monday And Thursday.

The GOP claim is obviously couched in objective terms and makes no judgments about PolitiFact's intent.  The claim concerns the result, not the intent.

And, of course, the PolitiFact response is a total joke.

Rick Thornton of the Richmond Times-Dispatch says “We typically print in the newspaper PolitiFact rulings on Sunday and Monday . . . . We post our rulings online pretty much as soon as they’re done . . . . A number of our rulings on both sides are on Fridays because they’re being finished up on Friday for Sunday.” 

That doesn't answer anything.

PolitiFact editor Bill Adair, who heads the national operation, says "It’s ridiculous to suggest that any of our PolitiFact sites schedule publication of some items to get smaller audiences."

Adair gravitates directly toward the same straw man that fascinated Wemple.  If the GOP document has the facts right and the good gets the small audience while the bad gets the big audience then the discrimination exists regardless of whether the PolitiFacters possess an awareness of the fact.  And one would think that PolitiFact Virginia would know about the alleged problem from its communications with the RPV.

Neither Thornton nor Adair addresses the charge from the RPV.  And it's a pity that Wemple reported it inaccurately.

Why is this so hard?  If the Sunday paper has more readers than weekday papers then PolitiFact can give an objective response to the charge from the RPV:  Those weekend stories often may have the larger audience.  If that defense isn't accurate then perhaps admit that the RPV has a point but assure everyone that it wasn't on purpose.

Is PolitiFact dissembling for the sake of a CYA strategy?   Yeah, could be.  In any case, the responses from PolitiFact scarcely count as serious.  And we let these people check facts for us?

The Washington Post: "Virginia Republican Party to PolitiFact: Don’t bother ringing!"

The Washington Post's reporter/blogger Erik Wemple updates his reporting on PolitiFact Virginia and the critique from the Republican Party of Virginia.

It turns out--no big surprise here--that the relationship broke down between the Virginia GOP and PolitiFact reporters.  The Republican Party of Virginia joins Wisconsin Democrats in giving their state's PolitiFact franchise the silent treatment.

Wemple may have tipped his ideological hand by referring to the GOP's critique as a "screed."  Sure, he can claim he just meant it was a long critique.  But if he does that then it makes his use of the term appear redundant ("enormous screed").  Careful, Mr. Wemple.

State political parties cutting off their cooperation with a fact checker?  Looks like the making of a news story.

The Washington Post: "Virginia Republican Party publishes huge attack paper on PolitiFact"

Erik Wemple and the Washington Post stand as the first mainstream media entities, not counting PolitiFact Virginia itself, to weigh in on the massive pushback PolitiFact Virginia received yesterday from the Republican Party of Virginia:

The Virginia Republican Party has compiled an attack on PolitiFact’s Virginia operation that is virtually unbloggable. An 86-page document with a cover page stating, “TO THE COMMONWEALTH OF VIRGINIA: A COMPREHENSIVE ANALYSIS OF POLITIFACT VIRGINIA’S QUESTIONABLE OBJECTIVITY,” it starts with a two-page memorandum and a three-page table of contents. Even Rachel Maddow has never produced a PolitiFact critique as exquisitely formatted.

Exquisite formatting makes less gratuitous use of capitalization according to our tastes, but we credit Wemple for zeroing in on one of the most intriguing aspects of the ponderous critique:

To narrow the scope of its inquiry, the Erik Wemple Blog will start out by exploring only the most fascinating of the Republican Party’s allegations — namely, that PolitiFact Virginia attempts to bury good ratings about Republicans and tout bad ones.

The Virginia GOP may qualify as the first to notice a bias in the timing of the stories, so that makes it a good angle for Wemple's initial approach.

Journalists are still missing the big story:  No mainstream fact checker receives anywhere near the criticism that PolitiFact receives.  There's a story in there.  And it's an important one.

Big Journalism: "VA GOP Pushes Back Against PolitiFact, Shows Other States the Way"

Big Journalism's John Nolte didn't take long to weigh in on the Republican Party of Virginia's challenge to PolitiFact Virginia's objectivity:

PolitiFact isn't just a national cancer on all of us. This reprehensible outfit also "fact-checks" in a number of individual states, including the crucial swing states of Florida, Wisconsin, Ohio, New Hampshire, and Virginia.

Unfortunately, my lack of superpowers makes it impossible for me to monitor the left-wing propaganda PolitiFact is surely spewing in each individual state. Thankfully, though, the Republican Party of Virginia has had enough.

Nolte's spirited rant is worth a full read, but we'll register some qualified disagreements.

If PolitiFact is a cancer it's often benign.  The fact checks are in the ballpark enough so that radical surgery probably doesn't serve as the answer.  And, in fact, the response from the Republican Party of Virginia probably doesn't serve as the model response, largely because it's too late to serve as a timely corrective for any misinformation it detects and because its format discourages people from reading it (PFB will give it a closer look over time).

On the good side, this type of response from the party does a great deal to bring attention to PolitiFact's many issues, which are best highlighted by research like that of Eric Ostermeier and collected evaluations like the recent set from Ohio Watchdog.

It's pretty easy to find good criticism of PolitiFact.  The challenge comes from getting the information in front of the public to increase people's awareness that PolitiFact cannot be trusted in its current form.

Virginia GOP vs. PolitiFact Virginia

The Republican Party of Virginia yesterday published an 86 page criticism of PolitiFact Virginia's objectivity.

We'll have plenty more to say about the specifics as we sift through it all, but here's a small taste of the lengthy document:

We believe the objective evidence assembled here provides ample reason for the public to question PolitiFact Virginia’s objectivity. Based on the compelling data contained herein we believe any Republican official or candidate in Virginia would be justified in publicly indicting PolitiFact Virginia’s pattern of bias, and publicly refusing to participate in or cooperate with their analyses unless and until such time the Richmond Times-Dispatch can substantively and publicly address the underlying concerns about their PolitiFact Virginia team’s lack of objectivity. Each official and candidate can make their own decision on participation with PolitiFact Virginia going forward.

PolitiFact Virginia was not slow to respond, though their response was weak even by PolitiFact standards.

A portion of the rejoinder from PolitiFact Virginia:

On Tuesday, the Republican Party of Virginia sent an "open letter to the commonwealth" accusing PolitiFact Virginia of being biased against the GOP in our rulings.

We disagree.

That's the gist of it, and the evidence supporting PolitiFact's disagreement is marginally greater than what occurs in the above quotation.  It doesn't begin to answer all the points in the GOP critique.

PolitiFact Virginia takes mere months to correct obvious misjudgment

It's "CORRECTION" time at PolitiFact? No, not quite.

It's "UPDATE" time at PolitiFact? Er, not exactly.

It's "Editor's Note" time! We love these!

Editors Note: On Dec. 26, 2011, PolitiFact Virginia rated as Mostly True a statement by Democrat Tim Kaine that Republican George Allen, during his term in the U.S. Senate from 2001-2007, helped turn the largest budget surplus in U.S. history into the largest deficit.

Our ruling was largely based on raw federal budget numbers dating back to the 1930s. The Allen campaign recently told us that our rating did not give enough credence to what two economists said in the original story: The best way to compare deficits through history is to express them as a percentage of the Gross Domestic Product at the time.

We took a new look at the fact-check and concluded the Allen campaign is right. So we are changing our rating to Half True because there is still validity to Kaine’s claim, but his numbers need context. 

PolitiFact Virginia published the above on May 15, nearly six months after giving Kaine his inflated grade.

Note that this ruling change does not come as a result of new information.  Everything was there in the story, and the PolitiFact Virginia team just failed to put the pieces together.  Note also that PolitiFact avoids calling this a correction in the editor's note.  Let's review the "Principles of PolitiFact and the Truth-O-Meter":

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.

If PolitiFact Virginia had committed a factual error, then it would publish an editor's note labeled "CORRECTION."  The note does not contain that word, therefore by PolitiFact's principles it committed no factual error by calling Kaine's claim "Mostly True."

Neat!

It gets even more confusing with the next bullet point.  If there's no factual error but just a clarification or update then we should see the label "UPDATE" along with the explanation of the change.  We don't see that label either.

Apparently PolitiFact Virginia just skipped the first two bullet points and went right for the third.  Reconvene if the mistake is significant and rewrite the item with the (non-correction) correction at the top.  So we have a mistake significant enough to require a rewrite with no admission of a mistake in accordance with PolitiFact's principles.  A mistake is implied by the new ruling with the rewrite, of course.

Seriously, if PolitiFact follows its principles on the matter of corrections in such a haphazard way, what makes anyone think it applies its other principles consistently?

Incidentally, it is clear that Republican George Allen endured the harm from the mistake, while Democrat Tim Kaine reaped the benefit.