All politicians lie. Some lie more than others
Even though the US is in the midst of a presidential campaign full of falsehoods and misstatements from the likes of Trump, I see cause for optimism
I’m a political fact-checker, which is usually an automatic conversation starter at parties. These days, I get two questions repeatedly: “Is it worse than it’s ever been?” and “What’s up with Donald Trump?” I’ve been fact-checking since 2007, when The Tampa Bay Times founded PolitiFact as a new way to cover elections. We don’t check absolutely everything a candidate says, but focus on what catches our eye as significant, newsworthy or potentially influential. Our ratings are also not intended to be statistically representative but to show trends over time.
Trump’s record on truth and accuracy is astonishingly poor. So far, we’ve factchecked more than 70 Trump statements and rated fully three-quarters of them as Mostly False, False or “Pants on Fire” (we reserve this last designation for a claim that is not only inaccurate but also ridiculous). We haven’t checked former neurosurgeon Ben Carson as often as Trump, but by the percentages Carson actually fares worse. Carly Fiorina, another candidate in the Republican race who’s never held elective office, does slightly better on the Truth-O-Meter (which I sometimes feel the need to remind people is not an actual scientific instrument): Half of the statements we’ve checked have proved Mostly False or worse.
Most of the professional politicians we fact-check don’t reach these depths of inaccuracy. They tend to choose their words more carefully. Senator Marco Rubio of Florida, for example, has ratings of Mostly False, False and Pants on Fire at the 40 per cent mark (out of a sizeable 117 statements checked). Former Florida Govenor Jeb Bush’s negative ratings are at 32 per cent out of 71 statements checked, a percentage matched by two other Republican contenders, Governor Chris Christie of New Jersey and Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky.
In the Democratic race, Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Hillary Clinton are evenly matched at 28 per cent (based on 43 checks of Sanders and 140 checks of Clinton). Outside of the primary campaign, we’ve continued checking the public statements of Bill Clinton since 2007; he comes out slightly ahead of President Barack Obama in his truth-telling track record.
The president has the distinction of being the most fact-checked person by PolitiFact — by a wide margin, with a whopping 569 statements checked. We’ve rated nine of those Pants on Fire.
Even though we’re in the midst of a presidential campaign full of falsehoods and misstatements, I see cause for optimism. Some politicians have responded to fact-checking journalism by vetting their prepared comments more carefully and giving their campaign ads extra scrutiny. More important, I see accurate information becoming more available and easier for voters to find. By that measure, things are pretty good.
Trump’s inaccurate statements, for example, have garnered masses of coverage. His claim that he saw “thousands of people” in New Jersey cheering the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, grabbed headlines but the stories were about the rebuttals.
US journalists have picked up the torch of fact-checking and now grill candidates on issues of accuracy during live interviews. Most voters don’t think it’s biased to question people about whether their seemingly fact-based statements are accurate. But fact-checking isn’t a cureall. Partisan audiences will savage factchecks that contradict their views, and that’s true of both the right and the left.
But “truthiness” can’t survive indefinitely in a fact-free vacuum. If Trump and his fans saw video of thousands of people cheering in New Jersey, why has no one brought it forward yet? Because it doesn’t exist. Fact-checking’s methodology emphasises the issue at hand and facts on the ground. Politicians can either make their case or they can’t. Candidates’ fans may complain about press bias, but my impression is that less partisan voters pay a lot of attention to these media moments, especially when elections are close and decided by a few percentage points. Trust and integrity are still crucial assets for a politician.
Contrary to the prophecies that truth in politics is doomed, I’m encouraged by the effect that fact-checking is having. In the end, it’s the voters who will punish or reward candidates for what they’ve said on the campaign trail. I’m confident that Americans have the information they need to help them choose wisely.