ANALYSIS

How To Differentiate Political Facts And Lies

PolitiFact Checks Everything From Ads To Chain E-mails To See Who's 'Pants-On-Fire' Lying

by Alexis Simendinger

Thursday, Sept. 4, 2008


Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin sung John McCain's praises on Wednesday night and looked to the TelePrompTer for her own second chance to make a first impression. Her boasts as McCain's running mate are under a microscope, not only in the mainstream media but also on a lively and informative website run by a research arm of the media called PolitiFact.com.

Palin has been sweating under the national klieg lights for just five days but already PolitiFact.com has graded her a flip-flopper on her boast that she opposed the so-called Bridge to Nowhere in her state as wasteful spending (she supported it when she ran for governor).

Her claims that she stood up to the oil companies and returned a "large share" of oil and gas revenues in Alaska to the people were deemed true, and her assurance during a recent television interview that oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge would impact only "2,000 out of 20 million acres" was judged partially but not entirely true by the website's Truth-o-Meter.

"We check anything," said journalist Bill Adair, the editor of PolitiFact, which is a joint project of the St. Petersburg Times and Congressional Quarterly. His team of researchers and writers pores over presidential campaign truths, embellishments, and out-and-out lies culled from TV ads, statements, e-mails, and other forms of political communication. They have looked at more than 100 of Barack Obama's "facts," and about the same number from McCain.

In all, PolitiFact has examined more than 600 "fact" claims made during the 2008 campaign, Adair said. Heading into the Democratic National Convention, the website had deemed 163 of them true, 102 false, and 32 "pants-on-fire" lies.

During a Tuesday panel discussion hosted by the Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs at the University of Minnesota, Adair admitted -- to profuse laughter -- that the group even took a serious look last spring at one of many chain e-mails attacking Obama: the claim that the Democrat is the Antichrist.

Adair explained that many political e-mails -- and even chat-room comments with helpful links -- look researched and verifiable, with citations appended. They're designed to skip along the blogosphere as a viral erosion of a candidate's standing among potential voters.

Citing the Bible and biblical scholars; PolitiFact picked through the Antichrist contention and ruled it pants-on-fire false. The e-mail in question read: "According to The Book of Revelations The anti-Christ will be a man, in his 40s, of MUSLIM descent, who will deceive the nations with persuasive language, and have a MASSIVE Christ-like appeal.... The prophecy says that people will flock to him and he will promise false hope and world peace, and when he is in power, will destroy everything is it OBAMA??"

"These e-mails can be very persuasive-looking," Adair said, and his website noted last spring that Google reported more than 600,000 hits for "Obama=Antichrist," which is why PolitiFact was persuaded to take it seriously.

His group is far more likely to find viral e-mails -- a relatively new phenomenon in political "advertising -- to be false than televised political ads, Adair said, adding that these e-mails also tend to be deeper under the radar. Of the "facts" that PolitiFact has examined from chain e-mails, it has rated 76 percent false or pants-on-fire lies, and only 6 percent true.

One novel message-delivery platform during this campaign -- packaged condoms distributed near the Democratic convention in Denver -- got a PolitiFact look-see because Planned Parenthood had printed messages on the prophylactics: "Protect Yourself From John McCain." The package included 10 reasons women should oppose McCain's bid for the White House. Adair's group selected one assertion for scrutiny, that McCain "said he was 'stumped' when asked whether contraceptives help stop the spread of HIV."

PolitiFact's verdict? He said it all right, in Iowa last March, aboard the Straight Talk Express.

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