Afrigather This text is an excerpt from Matt Palumbo’s ‘Fact-Checking the Fact-Checkers’: How The Left Hijacked and Weaponized the Fact-Checking Industry
The existence of bias at PolitiFact has been studied and analyzed many instances over time—and all with the identical end result.
That so-called fact-checkers are simply biased left-wing gatekeepers is clear to anybody that’s adopted their observe document, and PolitiFact specifically has achieved a poor job of concealing its partisanship. In a single case they assigned totally different scores to just about equivalent statements based mostly on the ideology of the individual making them. When Ron Paul (a libertarian who was a registered Republican on the time) and Jim Webb (a Democrat) made almost equivalent statements concerning the U.S. missing revenue taxes previous to 1913 they obtained totally different rulings from the location. Ron Paul’s assertion was solely decided to be “Half True,” whereas Webb’s was “Mostly True.”
In a single amusing case of actuality slapping them within the face, PolitiFact initially rated Obama’s first-time marketing campaign promise that “should you like your health-care plan, you possibly can hold your health-care plan” declare as “True.” PolitiFact would later must reevaluate that declare, which they decided to be the “lie of the 12 months” in 2013.
Each the article ranking Obama’s “should you like your plan you possibly can hold your plan” lie true and the one years later ranking it the lie of the 12 months had been written by the identical individual, PolitiFact’s editor-in-chief Angie Drobnic Holan. She made no point out of her personal constructive analysis of the lie whereas penning her 2013 “lie of the 12 months” article the place she admitted that “Obama’s promise was unimaginable to maintain.”
However she didn’t understand that years prior?
The RealClearPolitics Fact Check Review reviewed 434 articles from PolitiFact and located that 15 p.c of their “fact-checks” are actually “opinion-checks.”
A College of Minnesota Faculty of Public Affairs survey of all 5 hundred statements that PolitiFact rated in January 2010 through January 2011 discovered that of ninety-eight statements they rated false, seventy-four had been from Republicans.
The Heart for Media and Public Affairs at George Mason College present in a 2013 research that within the first 4 months of Obama’s second time period, PolitiFact flagged Republicans as being dishonest at thrice the speed of Democrats.
The Media Research Center’s Tim Graham famous of the report: “Even whereas the Obama scandals piled up—from Benghazi to the IRS to the DOJ phone-records scandals—Republicans are nonetheless being flagged as worse than Democrats, with 60 p.c of the web site’s selective claims rated as false thus far [in May 2013] in comparison with 29 p.c of their Democratic statements—a 2 to 1 margin.”
“As for your complete 4 months, PolitiFact rated 32 p.c of Republican claims as “false” or “pants on fireplace,” in comparison with 11 p.c of Democratic claims—a 3 to 1 margin. Conversely, Politifact rated 22 p.c of Democratic claims as “solely true” in comparison with 11 p.c of Republican claims—a 2 to 1 margin.”
“A majority of Democrat statements (54 p.c) had been rated as largely or solely true, in comparison with solely 18 p.c of Republican statements. Against this, a majority of Republican statements (52 p.c) had been rated as largely or solely false, in comparison with simply 24 p.c of Democrat arguments.”
In the meantime, statements by Republicans had been rated solely false (“False” or “Pants on Fireplace”) twice as usually as Democrats (29 p.c vs. 15 p.c). On the time Graham reported on this research, the “Pants on Fireplace” web page on PolitiFact’s web site displayed eighteen false claims by Republicans and two by Democrats.
The Federalist’s Matt Shapiro ran the numbers in December 2016 and additional confirmed that there actually is a double customary relating to how PolitiFact evaluates claims.
After evaluating 1000’s of PolitiFact articles and assigning their scores a rating starting from 0 (True) to five (Pants on Fireplace), he discovered that Democrats had a mean ranking of 1.8, which is between “Principally True” and “Half True.” The typical Republican ranking was 2.6, which is between “Half True” and “Principally False.”
“Principally False” is the most typical ranking given to Republicans moreover Donald Trump, and so they ranked Hillary Clinton because the second-most sincere politician (lol).
When it got here to the worst potential ruling, “Pants on Fireplace,” Donald Trump accounted for half of these scores. However even with Trump excluded, PolitiFact has a penchant for giving Republicans that ranking which signifies they had been caught in an outrageous, bald-faced lie, whereas when Democrats make false claims, PolitiFact will have the ability to discover some semblance of reality throughout the declare in order that they solely must price it “Principally False” or “Half True.” Throughout the 2012 election season, PolitiFact assigned Mitt Romney nineteen “Pants on Fireplace” scores, whereas ALL Democrats mixed obtained twenty-five “Pants on Fireplace” scores from 2007 to 2016.
Are we to consider that Romney was extra of a liar through the 2012 marketing campaign season than all Democrats over almost a decade? That’s about as plausible because the declare that Hillary Clinton was the second-most sincere politician in America.
Talking of Hillary, a Media Research Center evaluation through the 2016 election discovered that PolitiFact gave its “Pants on Fireplace” ranking to Trump fifty-seven instances, in comparison with solely seven instances to Hillary Clinton, the lady who performed a task in making a conspiracy concept that Russia was behind a secret plot to elect her opponent. Trump’s statements obtained “False,” “Principally False,” or “Pants on Fireplace” scores 77 p.c of the time, in comparison with solely 26 p.c for Hillary.
Because the race was in its endgame, from September to Election Day, Republicans obtained the “Pants on Fireplace” rating twenty-eight instances, half of which went to Trump, whereas Democrats solely obtained that rating 4 instances, certainly one of which went to Hillary.
The inconsistencies in scores are in every single place—and whereas they aren’t as express as fact-checking an almost equivalent declare and giving it a special ranking, they aren’t onerous to overlook.
The apparent bias has solely continued into the Biden period.
Throughout Joe Biden’s first 100 days in workplace, PolitiFact evaluated solely 13 of his claims whereas evaluating 106 others in protection of him.
Of the 13 Biden statements, eight had been some type of falsehood, however not one earned him a “Pants on Fireplace ranking.” Of the 106 fact-checks of claims about Biden, ninety-one had been “Principally False,” and twenty-four had been “Pants on Fireplace.”
There wasn’t precisely a scarcity of false claims they might’ve evaluated, as even the Washington Submit’s fact-checker (Glenn Kessler) had concluded that Biden advised seventy-eight lies that earned a “4 Pinocchios” ranking by that point (however then, as talked about beforehand, introduced that he can be discontinuing the database of Biden falsehoods throughout his first 100 days in workplace).
This was only the start of PolitiFact treating the Biden presidency with child gloves.
In keeping with Graham, after reviewing Biden’s first 12 months, the identical sample held. Biden was fact-checked forty instances by PolitiFact his first 12 months, whereas his critics had been checked 230 instances. Excluding the aforementioned first 100 days, Biden was checked twenty-eight instances, in comparison with 124 fact-checks of his critics. Whereas almost half of Biden fact-checks had been “Principally False” or worse, 201 of the 230 claims from his critics (87.4 p.c) had been rated the identical. Solely three statements from Biden’s critics had been rated true. PolitiFact additionally didn’t assign a single “Pants on Fireplace” ranking to any of Biden’s feedback, of which he’s solely obtained six since they launched in 2007. As Graham places it, “Biden can say the evacuation from Afghanistan was an ‘extraordinary success,’ and the Republicans are pushing ‘Jim Crow on steroids,’ and there might be no reality checks.”
Against this, lots of the “Pants on Fireplace” scores for Biden’s critics had been claims laughably pointless to fact-check. That included fact-checking claims reminiscent of “Biden is laptop generated,” debunking photoshopped photos of Biden sniffing folks (although there are many actual ones), and refuting a report that Biden was handed a “vile of blood” from a toddler on a stroll again to the White Home. (Equally, over at Snopes, they’ve gone so far as to get to the bottom of whether or not Biden actually pooped his pants whereas on a visit in Rome.)
Much like the instance given with Ron Paul and Jim Webb, PolitiFact’s bias results in inconsistent requirements in truth checking. In a single case PolitiFact’s writers couldn’t even agree with each other on what it means to “reduce” authorities spending.
PolitiFact rated Republican claims through the 2012 election that Obama had reduce Medicare by $700 billion as false as a result of it wasn’t an outright $700 billion reduce however a $700 billion reduction in future spending.
In the meantime, in a fact-check defending Britain’s National Health Service (NHS) in opposition to criticism from Donald Trump, PolitiFact reported that “whereas the NHS has misplaced funding over time, the march that came about was not in opposition to the service, however a name to extend funding and cease austerity cuts in direction of well being and social care.” They had been referring to Trump mistaking a pro-NHS protest for an anti-NHS protest, however the related level right here is that NHS had not seen their price range reduce, it was a reduce in future spending.
It’s a standard trick for politicians to border reductions in will increase in spending as cuts, and PolitiFact was in a position to accurately establish this within the former instance but additionally apply it inconsistently within the latter relying on the get together of these being fact-checked.
