A Little Bit More and We'll Be Inches Away from Hacks

Sometimes PolitiFact's assault on consistency is so overwhelmingly obvious, it makes my brain hurt. Do these people even keep track of what they write?

A few weeks ago PolitiFact published an article analyzing an Obama campaign ad describing the president's tax plan:

Image from PolitiFact.com

The ad attempts to differentiate between the president's plan and Mitt Romney's tax plan. The ad claims millionaires, under Obama's plan, will "pay a little more." PolitiFact's article goes on to describe different figures and analyze different metrics and concludes millionaires, on average, would end up paying roughly $189,000 more in taxes. Seems like a simple thing to rate. What could go wrong?

Supporters of Obama’s tax plan are free to argue that the tax hike on high earners is wise policy or morally justifiable. However, we think that even for a millionaire, an extra $189,000 in taxes on average -- resulting in a decline in after-tax income of 8.8 percent -- goes well beyond chump change.

So how does this rate on the trusty ol' Truth-O-Meter?

We considered putting this to the Truth-O-Meter, but we decided that "a little more" is an opinion, not a checkable fact.

That's right. The phrase "a little more" is beyond the scope of objective facts. It's an opinion. I agree with PolitiFact. So what's the point of this post? Have a look at this:

Image from PolitiFact.com

When Barack Obama tells you millionaires will only pay a little more, it's an opinion. When Mitt Romney uses a common metaphor, it's a lie. In fact, it's a lie twice:

Image from PolitiFact.com

Twice PolitiFact found enough verifiable facts to assign a value of honesty to a Mitt Romney opinion. Obama? Well, heck, they don't check opinions.

All three articles were written by Louis Jacobson. Both Romney articles were edited by Martha Hamilton.

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.

PolitiFlub: PolitiFact Wisconsin, the Obama promise and the Janesville GM plant (Updated)

Crossposted from Sublime Bloviations


PolitiFact has earned its status as the least-dependable of the stable of left-leaning fact check organizations.  PolitiFact Wisconsin gives us one more sparkling example supporting that judgment with a fact check of Republican vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan.

Ryan said President Obama broke a campaign promise to keep the Janesville (Wisc.) plant open.   PolitiFact Wisconsin detected no such promise from Mr. Obama.

Here's what then-candidate Obama said in February 2008 (bold emphasis added) during a speech in Janesville:

This can be America’s future. I know that General Motors received some bad news yesterday, and I know how hard your Governor has fought to keep jobs in this plant. But I also know how much progress you’ve made – how many hybrids and fuel-efficient vehicles you’re churning out. And I believe that if our government is there to support you, and give you the assistance you need to re-tool and make this transition, that this plant will be here for another hundred years. The question is not whether a clean energy economy is in our future, it’s where it will thrive. I want it to thrive right here in the United States of America; right here in Wisconsin; and that’s the future I’ll fight for as your President.

Importantly, Obama opened his speech with references to the plant.  He then sketched his vision of America before mentioning how the Janesville plant could stay open if the government provides support.  In that context, Obama pledged to provide that support.  Does Mr. Obama use the specific term "promise" in his statement?  No, certainly not.  Does he guarantee the plant will remain open?  Again, no.  However, there is little doubt  that every person in Janesville listening to his speech took it as a pledge from the president to work to enact policies to keep the plant open. Mr. Obama did, in fact, pledge to do just that.

PolitiFact Wisconsin located no such pledge.

But it gets worse.  Much worse. PolitiFact builds its conclusion primarily on its claim that the Janesville plant closed before Mr. Obama took office (bold emphasis added):

Ryan said Obama broke his promise to keep a Wisconsin GM plant from closing. But we don't see evidence he explicitly made such a promise -- and more importantly, the Janesville plant shut down before he took office.

We rate Ryan's statement False.

GM announced the likely permanent closure of the Janesville plant in June of 2008, less than four months after Mr. Obama pledged to work toward an agenda that would keep the plant open for "another hundred years."

So, when is the plant closed?  When it closes for the last time?  When it produces its last GM vehicle?  When the company announces its permanent closure on a particular date?

When President Bush left office, he had provided Chrysler and GM loans to keep them going until the automakers could present restructuring plans to the Obama administration in April.

GM announced the final closing of the Janesville plant in April of 2008, and the final Chevy Tahoe came off the line in December 2008, before Obama took office as president.  On the other hand, the plant stayed open so that GM could build trucks for Isuzu:

The company stopped building SUVs at the plant just before Christmas.

That decision left about 1,200 workers unemployed.At the time GM said a crew would remain to complete an order for Isuzu.

But by June of 2009, while the Obama administration was still negotiating GM's fate and after completing the work for Isuzu, Janesville continued to maintain hope that its plant might reopen:

JANESVILLE (WKOW) -- There is a lot of optimism in Janesville today, after receiving word GM could reopen one of its idle plants to produce new fuel efficient cars, according to the Wisconsin Department of Workforce development.

If the GM restructuring deal brokered by the Obama administration resulted in continued production at GM's plant in Janesville, is there any doubt at all that Obama would receive credit for delivering on a promise?  Especially if the work involved hybrid vehicles?  The opportunity was there for the taking.

Why is so much of this information missing from a fact check?


Update 8/30/2012, 4:15 p.m.:

NPR fills in some of the missing information PolitiFact omitted.


Correction 8/31/2012:  Original version had wrong date for Obama's Janesville speech on first reference:  "Here's what President-elect Obama said in December 2008 (bold emphasis added) during a speech in Janesville:"  That sentence has been made accurate.

National Review: "PolitiFiction"

This morning National Review published a bylineless editorial on our favorite subject:  PolitiFact.

With "PolitiFiction" the Review's editors bring a very important message to readers as we enter convention week for the GOP:

The website PolitiFact is going to be truth-squadding the Republican convention speakers this week, delivering verdicts on which claims are “mostly true” and which deserve a “pants on fire” rating. Our advice: Pay no attention to those ratings. PolitiFact can’t be trusted to get the story right.

The editorial goes on to illustrate its point by describing a number of instances where PolitiFact's reporting on health care issues failed to adequately inform.

The editorial is lean, hard-hitting and packs a whale of a kicker at the end. 

The circus inside PolitiFact's "Star Chamber"

I suspect that many people think, as I originally did, that PolitiFact selects its "Truth-O-Meter" ratings through something like an objective process.

Andrew Phelps of the Nieman Journalism Lab recently sat in on PolitiFact's formerly private deliberations and produces much the picture I have come to expect (pun not intended) during my years of increasing skepticism.

Adair doesn't reveal his politics.  Who put that Obama cutout back there?

Phelps:

WASHINGTON — PolitiFact’s “Star Chamber” is like Air Force One: It’s not an actual room, just the name of wherever Bill Adair happens to be sitting when it’s time to break out the Truth-O-Meter and pass judgment on the words of politicians. Today it’s his office.

Three judges preside, usually the same three: Adair, Washington bureau chief of the Tampa Bay (née St. Petersburg) Times; Angie Drobnic Holan, his deputy; and Amy Hollyfield, his boss.

"Star Chamber" aptly describes the secretive nature of the judges' meeting. PolitiFact staffers sometimes talk about what goes on in the meetings, but PolitiFact readers get no "report card" on the voting records of the fact check judges.

Jeff and I have repeatedly criticized PolitiFact's process for its institutionalization of PolitiFact's group ideology. Phelps' descriptions and transcripts bring our worst nightmares to life as the judges make their decisions with no apparent grounding in objective data. Phelps featured the following transcript early in his story:

Hollyfield: Is there any movement for a Pants on Fire?

Adair: I thought about it, but I didn’t feel like it was far enough off to be a Pants on Fire. What did you think, Lou?

Jacobson: I would agree. Basically it was a case I think of his staff blindly taking basically what was in Drudge and Daily Caller. Should they have been more diligent about checking the fine print of the poll? Yes, they should have. Were they being really reckless in what they did? No. It was pretty garden-variety sloppiness, I would say. I don’t think it rises to the level of flagrancy that I would think of a Pants on Fire.

Adair: It’s just not quite ridiculous. It’s definitely false, but I don’t think it’s ridiculous.

1. Hollyfield tests for support of the "Pants on Fire" rating she apparently wishes to promote.
2. Adair didn't "feel" the claim went that far. How far is too far?
3. Writer Jacobson (not one of the judges) also offers his vote in terms of opinion: He doesn't "think" it's flagrantly false. What's the objective measure for "flagrant"?

Perhaps editor Angie Drobnic Holan, whose opinion was missing from this exchange, carried the torch for objective standards during the meeting. But don't bet on it. The portion of the conversation Phelps provides smacks of exactly the type of subjectivity hypothesized in PolitiFact Bias' initial research study into PolitiFact's bias.

Phelps:

Like the original Court of Star Chamber, PolitiFact’s Truth-O-Meter rulings have always been secret. The Star Chamber was a symbol of Tudor power, a 15th-century invention of Henry VII to try people he didn’t much care for.

...The site’s basic idea — rate the veracity of political statements on a six-point scale — has modernized and mainstreamed the old art of fact-checking.

Granted, I put together statements from Phelps a few sentences apart, but regardless of that one is still struck by the segue from PolitiFact's parallel to the 15th century "Star Chamber" to the praising of PolitiFact for modernizing fact checking. Indeed, the abandonment of transparency occurs as one of PolitiFact's most distinctive innovations in the fact checking business.

The secret voting serves the same purpose as the secrecy about staff members' voting history. PolitiFact does not want its readers taking the fact checkers' biases into account. The fact checkers doubtless assure themselves of their neutrality as nearby two-dimensional cardboard Obamas smile approvingly at their work.

Phelps:

The truth is that fact-checking, and fact checkers, are kinda boring. What I witnessed was fair and fastidious; methodical, not mercurial. (That includes the other three (uneventful) rulings I watched.) I could uncover no evidence of PolitiFact’s evil scheme to slander either Republicans or Democrats. Adair says he’s a registered independent. He won’t tell me which candidate he voted for last election, and he protects his staff members’ privacy in the voting booth. In Virginia, where he lives, Adair abstains from open primary elections. Revealing his own politics would “suggest a bias that I don’t think is there,” Adair says.

It's nice that Phelps didn't see any obvious bias, but who is he kidding? The PolitiFact staff knew he was observing them, didn't they? I think probably PolitiFact doesn't deliberately slant its fact checks, but Phelps offers the thinnest of reassurances on that count, particularly since the tone of his story suggests he shares the port side slant so common in modern journalism.

We could probably mine Phelps' story for a week's worth of material.  Maybe we will.

All credit to Jeff for spotting the President Obama cardboard figure in Adair's office that turns the statement about staffers' voting history into an absolute howler.

But don't get the idea that Adair is biased or anything. We wouldn't want that.


Jeff adds:

This ode to the majesty of PolitiFact's Echo Star Chamber is jaw-droppingly awful. Phelps' inability to untangle the contradictions in front of his own eyes was painful to read. For example, he describes the Truth-O-Meter as "simple, fixed, unambiguous." Unfortunately, Phelps never reconciles these concrete terms with the subjective nomenclature of the actual ratings. He writes:

“Pants on Fire,” a PolitiFact trademark reserved for claims it considers not only false but absurd.

Phelps never shares PolitiFact's unequivocal, dispassionate standard for "absurd." And the ratings process Phelps describes as "fair and fastidious; methodical", ultimately boils down to "What did you think, Lou?"

But fear not PolitiFans. PolitiPhelps assures us that he "could uncover no evidence of PolitiFact’s evil scheme to slander either Republicans or Democrats." This is the same Andrew Phelps who once asked "[W]hy is George Bush such a flaming moron?" The man who described Maureen Dowd as "The person who best captures my feelings about our miraculously awful [Bush] administration" is confident Bill Adair gives it to us straight.

It's worth noting that Phelps, despite mentioning the left's outrage over the recent LOTY rating, as well as Rachel Maddow's outbursts, was unable to link to the any of the persistent, and numerous PolitiFact rebukes from the right. It's been our experience that PolitiFact's attacks from the left are very often lame, but they get the links in Phelps' piece.

If there are actual scientific, objective standards applied to PolitiFact's ratings, Phelps failed to report them. Phelps' flattering prose aside, the article shows that PolitiFact's system is really just a bunch of coworkers asking each other if they are having a "movement."

Madison Forum: "Not Politifact; Just Politicopinion"

In March of this year J. Randolph Evans of "The Madison Forum" clobbered PolitiFact over its failure to cleave to objective standards in its fact checks: 

(W)ith a name like Politifact, readers might think that in at least one area, newspapers had abandoned their biases for one brief moment of objectivity. Do not be fooled. Hidden within the clever marketing names like Politifact and the nifty ratings like pants-on-fire, newspapers still filter in their biases.

Evans used a fact check of Mitt Romney's claim about President Obama's international policy tour as his example.

Evans: 

Even though Politifact writers by their own admission “reviewed several analyses of what Obama’s foreign policy goals are in traveling the world and readily admitting to America’s mistakes,” they could never bring themselves to the Politifact of the matter; instead they opted for politicopinion.

Evans goes straight for his point and makes it well, though he could have strengthened his case even more by pointing out PolitiFact's eye-popping arbitrary dismissal of one of the expert opinions it sought (bold emphasis added):

We sent Obama's remarks to several different experts on foreign policy and apologies, to see if they thought Obama was apologizing.

• Nile Gardiner, a foreign policy analyst with the the conservative Heritage Foundation, said Obama is definitely apologizing, and it's not good. He co-wrote the Heritage analysis, "Barack Obama's Top 10 Apologies: How the President Has Humiliated a Superpower."

That's true fact checking.  If an expert gives a take you don't agree with or is out of step with other experts, just ignore them.  In the name of the Truth, of course.

Evans makes a number of good points about modern American journalism, so pay The Madison Forum a visit and read the whole bit.

Dustin Siggins: "Is PolitiFact Campaigning for Obama?"

Dustin Siggins offers up another solid critique of PolitiFact in an article that was first posted at Right Wing News and then promoted at Hot Air. This time Siggins takes apart a PolitiFact Wisconsin rating on Nobel Teen Choice Award-winning actress Eva Longoria:

Image from PolitiFact.com

This seems like an easy claim to rate. Ryan's budget either cuts Pell Grant scholarships to 10 million students or it doesn't. How can PolitiFact screw this one up? Siggins fishes out the flaws:

PFW ranks this claim as “half-true.” Their primary evidence? An unsubstantiated claim by President Obama in April 2012:

Fortunately, our colleagues at PolitiFact National evaluated a similar statement made by Obama himself in April 2012, a few days after the GOP-controlled House approved Ryan’s budget resolution. (The plan didn’t pass in the Democratic-controlled Senate.)

Obama said that if spending reductions in the resolution “were to be spread out evenly,” nearly 10 million college students would see their financial aid cut by an average of more than $1,000 each. The White House told our colleagues the president was referring to the Pell Grant program.

So, Ryan’s plan does not specify cuts to Pell Grants. Obama is simply applying the total spending cuts in the plan evenly across the overall budget to derive a Pell Grant number.

This alone should make PolitiFact’s claim laughable.

Laughable is the right word. All PolitiFact has done here is accept Obama's dubious and "Half True" talking point as an actual budget number, and used it as a baseline to judge the accuracy of Longoria's claim. That's not fact-checking, that's the kind of spin the Obama campaign pays for from Robert Gibbs.

Siggins zeros in on another critical point PolitiFact uses to make Longoria's (and Obama's) talking point hold water:

[F]ollowing a link from the PFW analysis to the Department of Education’s website, one sees the Department has requested Pell Grants whose cost will total $36.629 billion – meaning that in a budget proposal that spends nearly one hundred times what the Department has requested, PolitiFact is making big assumptions.

It's hard to reconcile this type of rubber stamping of stump-speech rhetoric with the title of "non-partisan fact-checkers." There's simply nothing in Ryan's budget that identifies specific cuts to Pell grants, and it's only in the fast and loose world of political talking heads that assumptions like Obama's and Longoria's pass muster. Rather than sorting out the truth of the matter, PolitiFact runs to the kitchen to toss more ingredients into the soup.

Siggins has plenty more to say and we recommend checking out the entire piece.

On one point we don't quite agree with Siggins. He offers his own assessment of the correct rating without basing it on PolitiFact's definitions. We agree that Longoria's claim is false on its face, however, we tend to think that once one starts rolling around in the mud with PolitiFact's specific ratings, one may fall into their trap of trying to parse words to fit claims into its ready-made Truth molds. For my part however, I'm sympathetic to Siggins' point that this rating fails to meet PolitiFact's own standards for Half-True. The "important details" Longoria and Obama leave out happen to serve as the entire basis for their respective claims.


Bryan adds: 

I'm skeptical whether any of PolitiFact's logical hopscotch reasonably overcomes the hurdle of PolitiFact's "burden of proof" criterion:

Burden of proof -- People who make factual claims are accountable for their words and should be able to provide evidence to back them up. We will try to verify their statements, but we believe the burden of proof is on the person making the statement.

If we have evidential support of the Pell grant cuts then Sasquatch is "Half True" based on fur samples and footprints.

Relevant: Tim Groseclose explains the proof of media bias for Prager University

A little over a year ago, PFB linked to Power Line blog's excerpts from UCLA political scientist and economist Tim Groseclose's book "Left Turn: How Liberal Media Bias Distorts the American Mind."

We're delighted at the opportunity to host this brief video presentation of Groseclose's case:



Hat tip to Breitbart TV and Prager University.