Our goal at PolitiFact is to use the Truth-O-Meter to show the relative accuracy of a political claim. In this case, we rated it Mostly True because we felt that while the number was short of a majority, it was still a plurality. 40 percent of Americans consider themselves conservative, 35 percent moderate and 21 percent liberal. It wasn’t quite a majority, but was close.PolitiFact chief Bill Adair • Responding to some aggressive criticism from MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow, over PolititFact’s rating of Marco Rubio’s claim that “a majority of Americans are conservatives.” The polling used by PolitiFact to score the claim proved that, in fact, only 40% of Americans self-identify as conservative — not a majority. However, they rated his claim “mostly true,” the stated justification being “conservatives are the largest ideological group, but they don’t cross the 50 percent threshold.” PolitiFact has been the subject of some derision lately, with the spotlight turned on them after their controversial 2011 “Lie Of The Year” selection, about which Bill Adair authored a rather prickly, underwhelming defense. Earlier this week, they got some criticism over debunking a claim from an episode of “Glee.” Frankly, PolitiFact’s ratings have always brought with them a measure of subjectivity, as you might find with any media arbiter; it’s their own lofty title that makes this an issue. Majorities aren’t pluralities. For a fact-checker, that’s just a dictionary search away. source (via • follow)
The quality of Politifact’s lies seems to be getting a bit weaker lately.
Adair [PolitiFact Editor Bill Adair] goes on for a while, but I don’t think he puts back many of the eggshell fragments. The issue, as everyone else sees it: “PolitiFact should verify actual facts, because God knows politicians make a lot of stuff up on the fly.” The issue as Adair sees it: “Shut up, critics of PolitiFact.David Weigel, PolitiFact Weirdly Unable to Discuss Facts (via brooklynmutt)
Politifact’s controversial “Lie of the Year”: Did the Republicans vote to end Medicare? Politifact says no. Liberal bloggers such as Paul Krugman have long criticized their reasoning on this issue, with Krugman today responding to the “Lie of the Year” with a blog post titled “Politifact, R.I.P.” For what it’s worth, it’s a game of schematics: The Ryan plan, which eventually lost popular support among voters, would’ve heavily privatized the system, making it a shell of its former self, but to Politifact, that isn’t the same as killing it. What do you all think? Vote in our Quipol below:
Politifact has a quick fact-checking rundown of the candidates at the Iowa presidential debate Thursday night.
Here’s a few choice bits:
Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney complaining about the expanding size of government:
“Back in the days of John F. Kennedy, the federal government…
Promise kept.
It’s an impressive feat that he could 1) promise such a thing and 2) actually pull it off.
In case you didn’t see our comment on Rachel Maddow’s war of words with PolitiFact, we’d like to point it out again for your kids. We think that there is a lot of context worthy of your time. Above is Maddow’s clip from last night, which, while accurate in pointing out that PolitiFact isn’t always right, does the same kind of cherry-picking that PolitiFact did. From the report, they only quoted a two-second part of a clip that has much more direct context at play. Tommy Christopher at Mediaite took a swing at this whole issue, too, and you know what? He noticed the same thing we did about her surplus/deficit quote. “That passage can be read both ways, but in at least the semantic sense, Politifact is wrong. Their reading of this passage is a matter of interpretation.” In other words, while the exact quote Rachel Maddow pulled proves PolitiFact’s headline is in fact “False,” the problem is that the larger context, which claims that Walker turned a surplus into a deficit (the point of the article), is closer to the truth than Maddow’s people will like. Sorry, Rachel. source
In your effort to challenge a Capital Times editorial you have mistakenly ascribed the argument therein to Rachel Maddow. In so doing, you have half-quoted her in one instance, misquoted her in another, and misrepresented her overall.
Ms. Maddow is well aware of the Wisconsin budget shortfall. She said so just a few sentences after the line you decided to single out for “truthometry”:
“Even though the state had started the year on track to have a budget surplus—now, there is, in fact, a $137 million budget shortfall.”
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/41669030/ns/msnbc_tv-rachel_maddow_show/
To suggest — as your headline does — that we somehow neglected to report on the state’s real budget shortfall is absolutely erroneous.
We recognize the journalistic value in writing a “where did the budget shortfall come from” piece, but, if you need a bogeyman to deny the existence of the shortfall so you can make your case in the Politifact truth-o-meter gotcha format, you should pick someone who didn’t explicitly say, “there is, in fact, a … shortfall.”
First off, thanks to diegueno for pointing this out (though, considering the show had just posted about this around the time I threw up my link, you could have been nicer about it). It’s good to know that Maddow is taking the criticism seriously, especially considering that many politicians and media figures don’t pay PolitiFact a second glance. Above is an excerpt from a letter written by Bill Wolff, executive producer of Maddow’s show. Below is an excerpt from a second letter from Wolff in response to their reaction.
To state unequivocally — as you do here — that Maddow blamed Governor Walker directly for the current budget shortfall is a complete and utter distortion. And, yet, it’s an assertion that is made repeatedly throughout your post:
“Meanwhile, what about Maddow’s claim — also repeated across the liberal blogosphere — that Walker’s tax-cut bills approved in January are responsible for the $137 million deficit?” … There is, indeed, a projected deficit that required attention, and Walker and GOP lawmakers did not create it … Walker’s tax cuts will boost the size of the projected deficit in the next budget, but they’re not part of this problem and did not create it.”
That claim may exist somewhere in “the liberal blogosphere”, but it was never made in our report. Not once. Not only did Maddow say no such thing, you’ve missed her meaning entirely.
Let’s be clear — we aren’t picking sides here, other than to point out that this line from Maddow’s report seems not to jibe with the point that these angry letters make:
The state is not bankrupt. Even though the state had started the year on track to have a budget surplus—now, there is, in fact, a $137 million budget shortfall. Republican Governor Scott Walker, coincidentally, has given away $140 million worth of business tax breaks since he came into office.
Hey, wait. That‘s about exactly the size of the shortfall.
Look, Maddow’s folks are right … PolitiFact took a tiny part of a much larger report (which looked at the cultural roots of unions in the context of Wisconsin) and cherry-picked it. It was unfair to the overarching point Maddow was trying to make. And the headline to the PolitiFact article – “Rachel Maddow says Wisconsin is on track to have a budget surplus this year” – is completely misleading. But to us, that context of these lines certainly seem to support what PolitiFact is interested in – which is that Maddow suggested Scott Walker’s actions helped lead to the deficit. And ultimately, the report is of note, whether or not Maddow is tied to it because it’s something that’s been floating around the ether (it’s been quoted all over Tumblr, including on this site) looking to get cleared up.
Look, Maddow’s got every right to be angry. She’s got a better rep than a lot of the talking heads out there, and this hurts it. She was used as a scapegoat to get at an issue she didn’t originate. But looking at the context of what’s being said in her report vs. what PolitiFact covered, PolitiFact’s report is closer to “True” than “Pants on Fire.” We think, however, they should change that headline, stat. That’s actionable.
While some of the discussion was old news, and no show-stopping revelation emerged, the chat did produce some revelations about strategy, tactics and Walker’s view of his actions. Most notable was his comparison to Reagan busting the government air traffic union.PolitiFact Wisconsin • Regarding Scott Walker’s claim that his chat with the gonzo journalist pretending to be David Koch produced “no new revelations.” The site, which works with the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, has managed to correct a number of various facts about the current budget crisis, specifically when he compared his union-busting abilities to Ronald Reagan. To everyone claiming that there’s a budget surplus and Walker is lying to everyone – we point you to this entry. Regarding the scope of this bill, which Walker has said is exactly what he promised over the past two years – we point you to this one. There is a real issue here, and Walker is dealing with it, but the facts clearly point out that his tactics are way too harsh considering what promised to the press. source (via • follow)
Watch: PCB gets a visual shout out on GMA’s Yahoo/Tumblr...
Wrote a thing.
Hat tip to this headline writer.
Congrats Tumblr!
Don’t screw this up Yahoo.
In 2007, I was...
I started tumblr when I was at one of the lowest points of...
Takeovers are like coups. They both lead to dictators and a loss of freedom.GOP strategist Frank Luntz • Making the argument that the GOP should use the phrase “government takeover” in regards to the Obama health care bill – a phrase that has stuck despite the fact that the bill no longer actually has a public option which could be perceived as a “government takeover.” The phrase is now Politifact’s “Lie of the Year,” an award that is probably a better fit in this context than the “we’ve been eating healthy lately” context. Why did the lie propagate? Well, it’s hard to refute it in a handful of words. It actually requires some explaining, something which many news outlets chose not to do. source (via • follow)
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