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Politifact won the “Pompous Response to Criticism of the Year” award yesterday for their rebuttal to criticism about their awarding of the Lie of the Year to the correct claim by Democrats that Paul Ryan’s Path to Prosperity budget would end Medicare. Dave Weigel has a pretty thorough rundown, so I won’t bother. The short version is that Politifact chief Bill Adair once met a guy who read Newsmax and listened to Rush Limbaugh for news, so that inoculates them from criticism on every decision they make. Somehow the existence of an echo chamber allows Politifact to make things up.
The line that everyone singled out for mockery is this one:
The most over-the-top response (was it tongue-in-cheek?) was a rant from Jim Newell in Gawker under the headline “Why PolitiFact is bad for you.” He conveniently ignored the fact that our fact-checks are based on hours of journalistic research and portrayed them as the work of rogue bloggers with a gimmicky meter.
I guess by “journalistic” research, Adair means that they didn’t actually commit journalism, but something journalism-like, some facsimile of journalism. That is what it looked like to me, so maybe that was the most honest part of the rebuttal.
But Susan Gardner, herself a former traditional media journalist, dipped into the Politifact archives to show what they really mean by journalistic research:
Back in January, PolitiFact decided to check a business group’s claim that Wisconsin’s lawsuit rules make it one of the most anti-business states in the country:
The Wisconsin chapter of the National Federation of Independent Business portrayed mom-and-pop companies as easy prey when people sue over harm from defective products, negligent care, accidents and other injuries.
“Wisconsin has one of the most promiscuous tort systems in the country in which small businesses are easy targets for baseless lawsuits and civil penalties that are entirely disproportionate,” said Bill Smith, state director of the group, in a Jan. 4 news release in support of Walker’s proposals [...]
Smith pointed to a 2010 Pacific Research Institute ranking of states that he said puts Wisconsin at 35th — or 16th-worst in the United States — for an anti-business lawsuit climate. The institute is a free-market think tank based in California.
He also pointed us to Andrew Cook, a lawyer working with the Wisconsin Civil Justice Council, a business coalition lobbying for tighter lawsuit controls.
It turns out that Bill Smith, the NFIB state director, also acts as President of the Wisconsin Civil Justice Council. So Politifact took information from Bill Smith, who as proof for his claims pointed to a group run by Bill Smith. Now if that isn’t journalistic research, I don’t know what is.
It’s not that fact-checking in and of itself is a flawed notion that should be carried out by journalists in the midst of their stories rather than in some separate part of the paper, though that’s part of it. It’s that the people who self-importantly go around fact-checking appear to be bad at their jobs, and yet at the same time smug about them.
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What’s the word for Politifact and its staff? Tools.
Yeah, that’s about right.
And their defense includes “they did it too” (Factcheck.org and the WaPoo) and “it’s all those damned liberals in their echo chamber.” How pathetic is that?!
It’s important to remember that the problem was not Politifacts research habits. They called something that was essentially true a lie. There were plenty of sources explaining that Ryans plan would end Medicare. It would end it immediately for some, turning it into something different, and end it eventually for everyone. That Ryan still called the result “Medicare” and insisted he wasn’t ending “Medicare” as everyone understood it was the real lie. Politifacts turned the real liar, Paul Ryan, into the man allegedly defamed by people correctly calling him a liar. The world was upside down.
So Politifacts problem was not research methods. It was intellectual obtuseness, at least, and it became lying itself when all this was pointed out to them and they kept digging.
In their defense, there appears to be an ideological power struggle going on at the St.Pete Times.
One day they play to the typical mime from the corporate overlords, then the next day the headline will be actually supportive of #OWS. Most of the op-ed pages are relatively liberal.
Scarecrow wrote: “…problem was not Politifacts research habits. They called something that was essentially true a lie.”
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Well that’s kinda
harshaccurate.I don’t want to go off on a rant her but this “freedom of speech” thing is not working out as well “in practice” as “in theory”.
In Politi”fact” world, “hours of journalistic research” actually means:
Some rightwing thinktank hack was highly compensated to dream up some kind of bullshit and then use teh Google once or twice to find something, anything to loosely link their FICTION to.
This little gem about “hours of journalistic research” is Example Numero Uno.
Before I believe nearly anything pooped out by Politi”Fact,” I think I’d rather clap louder for Tinkerbell.
Apparently, PolitiFacts has difficulty with the distinction between “continuity of brand” and “continuity of product.” On the other hand, if they comprehend that distinction, then they are guilty of committing the “lie of the year.”
This decision is ideology based, not fact based. It’s propaganda, not reality. As such, it only required sufficient superficial “research” to justify the position for the credulous.
Bill Adair responded!
Amazing, as my little notes to him were like water on a ducks back – no response – and usually not even a letter to the editor getting printed.
Tampa Trib is very different than St Pete – but it seems Tampa has allowed the right wing bias at St Pete to continue.
what is the “hours of research” required for the ryan’s plan ends Medicare assertion? Read ryan’s effed-up plan! Its in the plan. No research required – just honest, cognitive thought.
It all comes back to that age old problem Plato discussed in “The Republic”: who will fact-check the fact-checkers?
Great comments Scarecrow pointing out its a lie was great more and more the Left needs to say the Right is lying straight out thats not a problem here at the lake but its a problem elswhere.
Onitgoes comment about Politifact’s “hours of journalistic research” being a joke was dead on I’ve seen newbee’s at the Lake on their first comment do more research and better reserach. SnatkCassie’s blog of teens writing articles did a much better job at research.
Wigwam’s idea ” the distinction between “continuity of brand” and “continuity of product.” I think should be expanded it explains why the Lefty blogs grow and the MSM keep losing readers/viewers.
I think if politifact keeps acting like the MSM they will in time shrink like the MSM’s failed business model. People want news propaganda is read when people want news that conforms to ideas they already hold. Propaganda fails when people know and care about issues that are contra the propaganda.
All in all short thread few comments but Great Comments!
Their response is more of a Politifart than a Politifact. :-P