PolitiFact: "PolitiFact is not biased--here's why" Pt. 4

In an article titled "PolitiFact is not biased--here's why" PolitiFact Editor Angie Drobnic Holan offers four points as evidence PolitiFact is not biased. This series deals with each of the four.

PolitiFact:

4. Reader support allows us to stay independent.

Our independent journalism, seeking only to sort out the truth in American policy, is what motivates us to keep publishing for the benefit of our readers. We began over a decade ago as a politics project at Florida’s largest daily newspaper, the Tampa Bay Times. Today, we are a nonprofit newsroom that is part of the Poynter Institute, a school for journalists based in Florida.

As with Holan's third point offered to show PolitiFact is not biased, her fourth point gives no reason to think PolitiFact is not biased.

Does anybody need a list of partisan causes supported by public donations? Does anybody have the slightest doubt that PolitiFact's "Truth Squad" membership skews strongly left? If anyone harbors the second doubt we recommend checking out polls like this one that show moderates and conservatives place little trust in the media.

If PolitiFact relies on donations primarily from liberals, then how does that make it more independent instead of less independent? Were PolitiFact to displease its liberal base it could expect its primary source of private donations to shrink.

Here's something we'd like to see. And it's something that will never happen. Let PolitiFact poll its "Truth Squad" to find out how its ideology trends as a group. If conservatives and moderates are a distinct minority PolitiFact can use that information to bolster its membership outreach to those groups: "We need more support from conservatives who care about objective fact-checking!"

And of course that will never happen. It tears down the facade PolitiFact built to suggest that its reliance on public support somehow keeps it politically neutral. PolitiFact has no interest in that kind of transparency. That kind of truth is not in PolitiFact's self-interest.

The Main Point? Reader $upport

We do not buy that PolitiFact sincerely tried to put forth a serious argument that it is unbiased. The argument Holan put forward toward that end was simply way too weak to make that easily believable. We think the main point was to soften misgivings people may have about joining PolitiFact's financial support club, which it has dubbed its "Truth Squad."

Holan tipped off that purpose early in her article (bold emphasis added):

We expect it (accusations of bias--ed.). Afterall [sic], as an independent group measuring accuracy, we are disrupting the agendas of partisans and political operatives across the ideological spectrum. We do it to give people the information they need to govern themselves in a democracy, and to uphold the tradition of a free and independent press.

Still, we think it’s worth explaining our mission and methods, both to answer those who make the charge against us, and for our supporters when confronted by naysayers.

Also see the trimmed screen capture image below (bottom) with an ad asking readers to support PolitiFact.

If you ask us, PolitiFact's "Truth Squad" isn't worthy of the name if they buy Holan's argument. "Dupe Squad" would be more like it. Holan wants your money. And it looks like she's willing to put forward an argument she wouldn't buy herself to help keep that money flowing.

Holan offers no real answer to those who claim PolitiFact is biased. To do that, Holan would need to specifically answer the arguments critics use to support their claims.

PolitiFact finds it preferable to simply say it is unbiased without offering real evidence supporting its claim. And without rebutting the arguments of its detractors.

Is the embedded ad asking for money a mere coincidence? We added the red border for emphasis.

PolitiFact Not Yet Tired of Using Statements Taken Out Of Context To Boost Fundraising

Remember back when PolitiFact took GOP pollster Neil Newhouse out of context to help coax readers into donating to PolitiFact?

Good times.

Either the technique works well or PolitiFact journalists just plain enjoy using it, for PolitiFact Editor Angie Drobnic Holan's Aug. 21, 2018 appeal to would-be supporters pulls the same type of stunt on Rudy Giuliani, former mayor of New York City and attorney for President Donald Trump.

Let's watch Holan the politician in action (bold emphasis added):

Just this past Sunday, Rudy Giuliani told journalist Chuck Todd that truth isn’t truth.

Todd asked Giuliani, now one of President Donald Trump’s top advisers on an investigation into Russia’s interference with the 2016 election, whether Trump would testify. Giuliani said he didn’t want the president to get caught perjuring himself — in other words, lying under oath.

"It’s somebody’s version of the truth, not the truth," Giuliani said of potential testimony.

Flustered, Todd replied, "Truth is truth."

"No, it isn’t truth. Truth isn’t truth," Giuliani said, going on to explain that Trump’s version of events are his own.

This is an extreme example, but Giuliani isn’t the only one to suggest that truth is whatever you make it. The ability to manufacture what appears to be the truth has reached new heights of sophistication.

Giuliani, contrary to Holan's presentation, was almost certainly not suggesting that truth is whatever you make it.

Rather, Giuliani was almost certainly making the same point about perjury traps that legal expert Andrew McCarthy pointed out in a Aug. 11, 2018 column for National Review (hat tip to Power Line Blog)

The theme the anti-Trump camp is pushing — again, a sweet-sounding political claim that defies real-world experience — is that an honest person has nothing to fear from a prosecutor. If you simply answer the questions truthfully, there is no possibility of a false-statements charge.

But see, for charging purposes, the witness who answers the questions does not get to decide whether they have been answered truthfully. That is up to the prosecutor who asks the questions. The honest person can make his best effort to provide truthful, accurate, and complete responses; but the interrogator’s evaluation, right or wrong, determines whether those responses warrant prosecution.

It's fair to criticize Giuliani for making the point less elegantly than McCarthy did. But it's inexcusable for a supposedly non-partisan fact checker to take a claim out of context to fuel an appeal for cash.

That's what we expect from partisan politicians, not non-partisan journalists.

Unless they're "non-partisan journalists" from The Bubble.





 
Worth Noting:

For the 2017 version of this Truth Hustle, Holan shared writing credits with PolitiFact's Executive Director Aaron Sharockman.

PolitiFact: That was then, this is now

Now (2017)

PolitiFact is independent! That means nobody chooses for PolitiFact what stories PolitiFact will cover. PolitiFact made that clear with its recent appeal for financial support though its "Truth Squad" members--persons who contribute financially to PolitiFact (bold emphasis added):

Our independence is incredibly valuable to us, and we don't let anyone — not politicians, not grant-making groups, not anyone — tell us what to fact-check or what our Truth-O-Meter rulings should be. At PolitiFact, those decisions are made solely by journalists. With your help, they always will be.

Got it? Story selection is done solely by PolitiFact journalists. That's independence.

Then (2015)

In early 2015, PolitiFact started its exploration of public funding with a Kickstarter program geared toward funding its live fact checks of the 2015 State of the Union address.

Supporters donating $100 or more got to choose what PolitiFact would fact check. Seriously. That's what PolitiFact offered:

Pledge $100 or more

Pick the fact-check. We’ll send you a list of four fact-checks we’re thinking of working on. You decide which one we do. Plus the coffee mug, the shout out and the mail.

We at PolitiFact Bias saw this scam for what it was back then: It was either a breach of journalistic ethics in selling its editorial discretion, or else a misleading offer making donors believe they were choosing the fact check when in reality the editorial discretion was kept in-house by the PolitiFact editors.

Either way, PolitiFact acted unethically. And if Angie Drobnic Holan is telling the truth that PolitiFact always has its editorial decisions made by journalists, then we can rest assured that PolitiFact brazenly misled people in advertising its 2015 Kickstarter campaign.


Clarification Feb. 18, 2017: Belatedly added the promised bold emphasis in the first quotation of PolitiFact.

PolitiFact misleads its "Truth Squad"

PolitiFact is in the midst of conducting a successful campaign for raising financial support from its readers.

We found it interesting and ironic that PolitiFact is using a misleading appeal toward that end:

As readers have cheered us on, plenty of politicians have actively rooted against us. At the 2012 Republican National Convention, journalists challenged Mitt Romney’s campaign team about an ad that falsely claimed Barack Obama was ending work requirements for welfare. Romney pollster Neil Newhouse responded by saying, "We're not going to let our campaign be dictated by fact-checkers."

Problem one: So far as we can tell, the fact checkers never responded to vigorous criticisms of their ruling on President Barack Obama's welfare work requirement tweak. That's despite basing the ruling essentially on Obama administration claims about what it was trying to accomplish with its Welfare requirement waiver provision.

Problem two: PolitiFact is taking the statement from Neil Newhouse out of context. And all the mainstream (left-leaning) fact checkers seem to enjoy doing that to enhance the popular view of their work.

I exposed that deception with an article at Zebra Fact Check:

What was Newhouse saying? We think the context makes clear Newhouse was not expressing a disdain for facts but instead expressing his distrust of fact checkers. The ABC News report makes that clear with its paraphrase of Newhouse: “Newhouse suggested the problem was with the fact-checkers, not the facts themselves.”

We’ll see that all three of the major fact checkers ignored the meaning ABC News identified for Newhouse’s statement and replaced it with a meaning that better served their purposes.

The fact checkers, including PolitiFact, misleadingly use Newhouse's statement as evidence campaigns do not care about the truth, and that, in turn, helps justify their own existence. And apparently the fact checkers themselves are perfectly willing to twist the truth to achieve that noble (selfish) end.

PolitiFact's "Truth Squad" is likely to end up as a left-leaning mob interested primarily in supporting journalism that attacks Republicans, conservatives and President Trump in particular.







Edit: A draft version of a Jeff Adds section was published today in error. We have since removed the section. Prior to removal we saved a version of this page that included the section. That can be found at Internet Archive. 
-Jeff 1619PST 2/10/2017

Update Aug. 22, 2018: Added the URL for the PolitiFact article encouraging readers to join its "Truth Squad." Also removed a redundant URL from the last paragraph.