Saturday, November 23, 2013

Politifact vs. ABC News (Aussie)

Just an observation.

Politifact is the outfit that attempts to rate statements politicians, public figures, etc., in terms of their truthfulness.

Politifact's Truth-O-Meter has the following levels:
True
Mostly True
Half True
Mostly False
False
Pants on Fire!
No Flip
Half Flip
Full Flip

The flips are primarily in relation to the presidential campaign.

What's interesting is that in Australia, ABC News created a similar type of Truth-O-Meter in conjunction with the most recent federal election called Fact Check.  There are some differences.  ABC has three types of verdicts: Red, In Between, and Green.

For the Red verdicts we have the following results: Figure Not Credible, Implausible, Improbable, Incorrect, Misleading, Spin, Unsubstantiated, Wrong.

For the In Between verdicts: Cherrypicking, Close to the Mark, Debatable, Doubtful, Exaggerated, Improbable, In the Ballpark, Incomplete, Inflated, Lawyers' Picnic, Not the Full Story, Out of Context, Outdated, Overblown, Overreach, Oversimplified, Overstated, Speculation, Splitting Hairs, Unenforceable, Unlikely, Unsound, Unsubstantiated, Unverifiable, Yes but More to It.

For the Green verdicts: Accurate, Checks Out, Close to the Mark, Correct, Fair Bet, In the Ballpark, On the Money, Stacks Up, Unverifiable, Yes but More to It.

I don't know if nuanced is the right word, but at the very least ABC does have a wider vocabulary.

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