PolitiFact Lie of the Year 2011: “Republicans voted to end Medicare”

Despite the extra scrutiny brought by the “big lie” (your interpretation) above, I appreciate fact-checking websites, and the rising industry that J-school professors and media pundits love to tut-tut these days. But who among us doesn’t find Washington Post’s  Pinocchio icon chuckle-worthy? And how could any truth-seeker not bask in the flames of the “pants-on-fire” rating dispensed by PolitiFact’s truth-o-meter? Are you not entertained, people? But gimmicks aside, the explanations these sites offer are mostly thoughtful and transparent (also see: factcheck.org). With all the handwringing about “objectivity,” we should welcome the rise of fact-checker sites that attempt, in their way, to add more clarity to a fuzzy arena.

To be sure, there are problems. Sometimes those pesky “facts” tend to avoid neat stark colors (such as black and white), and other times they are not facts at all. When my favorite fact-finding sight PolitiFact tagged Democrats with “Lie of The Year 2011” media types spit flames. David Weigel of Slate was apoplectic, Paul Krugman was vomiting fire, James Taranto from The Wall Street Journal called its approach plain “wrong.” And friend to TheParkerReport Rachel Maddow said of the site, it was quickly becoming irrelevant. (Ouch on you I).

Overnight the entire fact-checker movement grew a cottage industry of fact-checkers whose sole purpose was to checkout the checkers. The referees found themselves with referees, equally diligent judges of fact. The whole scene was ripped right from the rhyme book of the Notorious B.I.G., who claimed to have “lawyers watching lawyers” so he didn’t go broke. For a time, fact-checking journalism as a whole was feeling the heat, but PolitiFact editor Bill Adair was the one under fire. It’s been a month since revealing the “big lie” and Mr. Adair stands by his decision. Here, he offers TheParkerReport (and you, who read) some valuable insight into the business of fact-finding and how to remain cool in a firestorm.

The PolitiFact’s “Lie of the Year” caused a stir. Why not just do away with the controversy and let “the people” decide which is the lie of the year? Or try one from both sides (Dems and Repubs)? Or some other mechanism that would take you out of the bull’s eye? 

Bill Adair: We’re not afraid of controversy. We practice a gutsy form of journalism in a field with strong passions — politics. So we know we are going to make some people unhappy with practically anything we do.

We already have a Readers’ Choice award for the Lie of the Year. Two of the three years, the choice was the same as the PolitiFact editors.

We wouldn’t want to choose one from both sides because I think that would defeat the whole reason for the award — to honor the most significant falsehood of the year. And besides, we avoid that kind of forced balance. We make tough calls, which often means we’re going to make one side (or both sides) mad.

Some of PolitiFact’s critics cite the aforementioned “Lie of the Year” and the rating system as flawed. Gawker and Krugman (and a cadre of bloggers) have been particularly harsh. Is there any takeaway or any concession you may offer to your critics when it comes to “Lie of the Year” or general claims of selection-bias? 

I take the criticism seriously and have read it with an eye toward improving our work in the future. Our readers are smart people and I respect them. And I respect that reasonable people can disagree about our selection for Lie of the Year.

But I think it’s silly for people who disagree with one article to generalize that our rating system is flawed, or that fact-checking is somehow in trouble. I suspect that many of those same people have cited our work when it was favorable to them.

PolitiFact has had a great impact on the political scene so far. What has surprised you most about how PF has been received? 

The popularity of the Truth-O-Meter. From the start, we envisioned having a meter that would summarize our research and rate the relative accuracy of a claim. We considered a referee metaphor (with icons of the ref’s arms signaling the foul, which a friend had used one at the Washington Post), but we settled on the meter.

It’s been one of the most successful aspects of PolitiFact because it capsulizes our work in a handy icon that everybody can understand.

One time, a lady came up to me in National Airport while I was talking to a CBS News reporter. I thought she recognized him. But she turned to me and said, “You’re the Truth-O-Meter guy!”

Candidates have cited PolitiFact when attacking the records of others,but have you noticed any change in politician behavior—or statements—since the emergence of PolitiFact? I know, this is difficult to quantify, but wondering what your gut tells you about how PolitiFact might influence more honesty (or not). 

We’ve seen evidence that it does. A couple of times, President Obama has changed the wording of his speeches after we published our fact-checks. For example, we gave him a False for his claim that gasoline prices had never been higher and then, the next night, he changed that line in his stump speech and got it right.

We’ve also heard from people on Capitol Hill that senators and House members have told their staffers to check all the figures in their speeches because they don’t want to get a low rating from PolitiFact.

I don’t think fact-checking will ever eliminate falsehoods and lying — I think reasonable people can disagree about our ratings — but I do think that in the back of their minds, many politicians are aware before they speak that they will have to face the Truth-O-Meter.

Which campaign (or politician) has complained the loudest about your claims? 

I can’t think of one in particular. It really depends on the individual claim we have checked. We’ll get complaints from members of Congress or political parties about individual articles they dislike — but then they will often cite our work favorably when we give a False to their opponent.

My favorite is when someone will issue a press release that says, “PolitiFact finds what I said to be true!” I’m surprised that’s worthy of a news release. Aren’t they supposed to tell the truth?

How do you decide which reporters take on which claims? How many people check PolitiFact’s facts before publishing? In other words, what is the process? 

Here’s how it works: Every day, our interns look through transcripts, campaign videos, news coverage and interviews for factual claims. The editors review them and choose the claims to fact-check based on whether they are timely, newsworthy and whether people will wonder if the claim is true. That is our biggest criteria for selecting a claim to check — to satisfy people’s curiosity.

Most of the time, our reporters choose the claims they want to check. They do the research and write the article, which typically takes a day.

The articles, which include a recommended Truth-O-Meter rating, are then edited by one of our editors and then reviewed by a three-editor panel. The panel makes the final decision on the rating.

Campaigning and “lies” have gone hand in hand since there have been campaigns and elected officials. How does this crop of GOP candidates compare to their historical antecedents? 

We’ve only been around since 2007, so I don’t have much for a comparison prior to that. I will say that it’s striking how some candidates have adopted extreme language, such as calling President Obama a socialist, as Gov. Rick Perry and Newt Gingrich have. That’s a ridiculous false claim and it’s remarkable that it’s been made by presidential candidates.

PolitiFact has tweaked some of its features along the way. What changes big and/or small are you looking at now?

On the website, we’d like to provide new ways to visualize our work, such as the ratings for a single subject (showing the tally for all health care claims, for example). We’ve also discussed the possibility of having a feature to highlight our fact-checking for live events.

We also have a mobile app for iPhone, iPad and Android that I think of as our laboratory — a place where we can experiment with new features. It has the Truth Index, which is like the Dow Jones of truth, an average of all of our ratings. And we’re going to be experimenting more with mobile in the near future.

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[Extra Credit: For more on the subject give Lucas Graves' piece at @NiemanLab a click here, or Greg Marx's piece in CJR, here]   

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