Nothing To See Here: No such thing as free contraception?

We have another NTSH item concerning Sandra Fluke straight from PolitiFact's new "In Context" feature:

"Forty percent of the female students at Georgetown Law reported to us that they've struggled financially as a result of this policy.

"One told us of how embarrassed and just powerless she felt when she was standing at the pharmacy counter and learned for the first time that contraception was not covered on her insurance, and she had to turn and walk away because she couldn't afford that prescription. Women like her have no choice but to go without contraception."

It seems like at least two of the contraception methods women used--at least according to stats Nancy Pelosi and the Obama administration have eagerly tossed around--were essentially zero-cost methods.

But we'll leave those details to PolitiFact.

Nothing To See Here: The high cost of contraception for law students

This NTSH item comes to us straight from PolitiFact's "In Context" feature.  So this one coming from newly famous Sandra Fluke is a layup for PolitiFact:

"Without insurance coverage, contraception, as you know, can cost a woman over $3,000 during law school."

Nothing To See Here: Taking away contraception and turning back the clock

This invisible unmentionable comes from Timothy B. Carney of the Washington Examiner:

While PolitiFact and the Washington Post Factchecker blog basically ignored the string of “they’re trying to ban contraception !!!11!!!” lies from Democrats for weeks, last Friday, the Post noted Schumer’s boatload of deception. Here’s one of his gems:

This whole debate is an anachronism. Our country progressed beyond the issue of whether or not to allow birth control a long time ago. Yet here we are in 2012, and the Republican Party suddenly wants to turn back the clock and take away contraception from women. Make no mistake: that’s what this debate is about.

This one's pretty far back in the news cycle already, with no sign of interest from PolitiFact.

New feature: Nothing To See Here

To provide some contrast to the selection process PolitiFact uses to choose its subject matter, PFB introduces a new feature:  Nothing To See Here.

Posts in this series will feature claims a non-liberal might find interesting enough to fact check.  While we won't be surprised if PolitiFact checks some or perhaps even many of the issues we highlight, we still anticipate a pattern of ignored stories that puts PolitiFact in the role of serving the political interests of the left.

July 10, 2014:  Updated with tag:  Nothing To See Here.

Eric Zorn: "True lies: Media umpires confront the challenge of dishonest facts"

Eric Zorn of the Chicago Tribune produced an excellent column criticizing PolitiFact's (and the Washington Post's) approach to fact checking.

Perhaps its biggest flaw comes from the fact that Zorn is so late to the party, like so many other critics from the ranks of mainstream journalists and the political left. 

The pair of quotations near the end of his column cap it off nicely:

"I've never been able to see an academically defensible way to hand out those kinds of ratings," director Brooks Jackson [of FactCheck.org] told me Thursday. "But I secretly admire the ability of (PolitiFact and The Washington Post) to do that. It engages the readers, and it's fun. But we'll leave questions of 'truth' to the theologians and philosophers."

PolitiFact editor Bill Adair told me that "the Truth-O-Meter is the heart of our organization. We'd never consider getting rid of it, but we always encourage people not to look just at the rating, but also at our reasoning."

The "Truth-O-Meter" misleads PolitiFact's audience, just as Zorn and many others have pointed out.  Yet Adair says "We'd never consider getting rid of it."

Would you buy a used car from that guy?

Zorn makes a good number of important points, so please read and digest the entire column.

Tales of the Unexpected, featuring PolitiFact

 Crossposted from Sublime Bloviations

You have to love PolitiFact's fact-challenged statements about itself.


Now:

We’ve consistently ruled in the past that the economy is too complex to
assign full blame (or credit) for job gains or losses to a president or a
governor.

Then:

Our ruling

Pelosi compared a select time frame in the Obama administration against the entire length of the Bush administration -- a methodology that treats the two presidents unequally. The irony is that if she had used better methodology, she would have had a sounder argument that more private-sector jobs were created under Obama than under the Bush administration. For her general point, we give Pelosi some credit. For her methodological sins -- repeated at least three times -- we give her thumbs down. On balance, we rate her statement Half True.

There's consistency for you.

The NRCC makes a statement that's correct but represents cherry picking and gets a "Barely True."  Nancy Pelosi makes a statement that's also correct, represents cherry picking and gets a "Half True"--with no mention of docking Pelosi for crediting President Obama.  On the contrary, PolitiFact itself recommends an alternative method for giving President Obama credit for his job creation numbers compared to those of his predecessor.



Jeff adds (3/02/12): For the record, there's at least some consistency in these two articles: Both were written by Louis Jacobson, and both were edited by Martha Hamilton.

Michael F. Cannon: "Strike Three for PolitiFact"

Better late than never, we take note of Cato's Michael F. Cannon's take on PolitiFact's 2011 "Lie of the Year":

 The annual unveiling of its “Lie of the Year” award garners PolitiFact more attention than anything else. Hopefully, it will garner so much attention that people will recognize this award, which is supposed to improve political discourse, instead degrades it.

PolitiFact’s past three Lies of the Year have been about health care.  Not one of them was a lie.

Cannon has boycotted PolitiFact because of the subjectivity of its "Lie of the Year" selections, turning down requests that he contribute is expert opinion to various stories.

We join others in calling for an expanded boycott of PolitiFact:  Don't cite PolitiFact as a dependable source of information.  Pressure it to reform by dumping the silly and misleading "Truth-O-Meter" and finding additional ways to separate objective reporting from news analysis and outright opinion.

Cannon's commentary is crisp and to-the-point.  Do read it all, and visit his links to appreciate the history of his principled boycott.

PolitiFact's sham fact checking

Senator Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) and  President Barack Obama had something in common last week, and Jeff Dyberg noticed.

Both made statements about majorities that were graded "Mostly True" by the fact checkers at PolitiFact.  The justifications PolitiFact used for the rulings was similar.  PolitiFact cited poll data showing that pluralities rather than majorities obtained, and ruled favorably based on the underlying points.

Note the summary paragraph for the Rubio story:

Rubio said that the majority of Americans are conservative. A respected ongoing poll from Gallup shows that conservatives are the largest ideological group, but they don’t cross the 50 percent threshold. So we rate his statement Mostly True.

Compare the summary paragraph for the Obama item:

So overall, the poll numbers support Obama’s general point, but they don’t fully justify his claim that "the American people for the most part think it’s a bad idea." Actually, in most of the polls just a plurality says that. On balance, we rate his statement Mostly True.

Rubio and Obama no longer have the "Mostly True" ruling in common.

PolitiFact received numerous complaints about the Rubio ruling and changed it to "Half True."

Of course, in the case of Rubio, PolitiFact found more information that bolstered the downgraded "Half True" rating.

Just kidding.  Go through the updated story with a fine-toothed comb and Rubio's claim ends up looking even more similar to Obama's, except maybe better.  Note the concluding paragraph of the updated Rubio story:

So by the two polls, he was incorrect. By one, he was correct and we find support for his underlying point that there are more conservatives than liberals. On balance, we rate this claim Half True.

This case makes it appear that PolitiFact is sensitive to scolding from the left, perhaps particularly when it comes from media elites like Jay Rosen.  And maybe that's understandable in a way.  But if the left doesn't complain about the Obama rating until it's downgraded to "Half True" then both the left and PolitiFact (or is there a difference?) look pretty inconsistent.