Truth-O-Meter For Politicians

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Texas Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst woke up the other day to find the newspaper had declared on the front page that he was dead wrong.

To be precise, the Austin American-Statesman said Dewhurst had made statements about kidnapping in Phoenix that were FALSE. It wrote it just like that, in capital letters, accompanied by a needle pinned to empty in what the newspaper calls "The Truth-O-Meter."

He's gotten more favorable judgments, too, but Dewhurst, a Republican running for re-election this year, was not amused. "This is regrettably a new low for the Austin American-Statesman and for this particular group," Dewhurst told NPR. "It shouldn't be in the newspaper. It should be on the editorial page. I mean, for heaven's sake."

"This particular group" is a reference to the handful of journalists working for the newspaper's PolitiFact Texas desk. It's an offshoot of PolitiFact, a Pulitzer Prize-winning project that is the brainchild of Bill Adair of the St. Petersburg Times. He created the Truth-O-Meter to grade the claims of politicians of both parties on a national level. It is a tremendous expansion of the effort news outlets have made for a generation to fact-check political ads during campaign seasons. Adair is keeping tabs, for example, on progress made by President Obama on the hundreds of promises he made while a candidate.

Now Adair is training journalists at news outlets in Florida, Georgia, Texas, Ohio and Rhode Island to do the same locally, and he's also appearing periodically on NPR and NPR.org to fact-check claims throughout this year's campaign season.

A Tough Start

The American-Statesman was the first regional news outlet to unveil its own Truth-O-Meter, and that first stretch was a rough one.

"At the start, [we] had some vigorous conversations about why we've concluded what we did, and why they thought we were off our rockers," recalls Gardner Selby, a reporter and editor for the PolitiFact Texas desk. "I have a press release that was issued by Gov. [Rick] Perry's campaign. The headline is, 'Truth-O-Meter is Broken.' I think that was issued in the first week we were in business."

The PolitiFact franchise represents a major shift in the way mainstream reporters report and share their findings — with no slapdash he-said, she-said involved. Instead, carefully researched pieces heap praise or criticism on candidates for the truth of what they say on the trail.

"If someone asserts something, it's not just going to slip by as a sound bite," Selby says. "The Austin American-Statesman and PolitiFact Texas are going to take that sound bite, and take it apart, and put it together again, and say, 'Here are the pieces that fit, and here are the pieces that don't.' "

'Pants On Fire'

Some readers around town say they look forward to PolitiFact stories.

"I think it's good. I'm a conservative, and I think it's good to know what's really true, not what the slant is on either the liberal side or the Republican side," says Kay Page, 41, an administrative assistant.

Michael McCathern, 35, a land surveyor who buys the paper every day, says he reads the PolitiFact stories when they appear. "Someone's got to look into if what they're saying is fact or not fact," he says.

Andrea Don, 24, an expectant mother who’s not currently working, says the reporters are just doing their jobs. "I like them better [than the politicians],” she says.

"I think that’s OK, as long it is the facts and you're not distorting the truth," says Yolanda Dover, 47, who works in licensing people to install underground storage tanks for state of Texas. "But also, the name-calling — I don't think that's appropriate."

Ah, yes. PolitiFact Texas calls no one a liar. But — and this is a big but — the strongest condemnation does rhyme with it: "Pants on Fire." Perry, the governor, has been a repeat offender. But his Democratic challenger, Bill White, has also shown up. And so has the state Democratic chairman.

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This is such a great idea. It needs to be expanded on and applied to more than just polticians.