Even in Politics, Facts Are Facts

Bill Adair remembers the exact moment he decided that too much of the political coverage was failing the American public.

It was Sept. 1, 2004, and Adair was covering the Republican National Convention as a reporter for the St. Petersburg Times. That evening, he watched as the keynote speaker, Democratic Sen. Zell Miller, stood before the packed convention and accused Sen. John Kerry of repeatedly voting for bills to weaken the U.S. military.

"(Miller) was making a half-dozen specific claims of weapons systems that he said Kerry opposed, and I remember thinking, 'Gosh, I wonder how many of these things he's saying are true?'" Adair said. "Those of us who cover these issues know that a senator's vote on a particular bill doesn't necessarily mean he opposed body armor, for example."

Adair knew he wasn't the only one questioning the veracity of Miller's claims.

"I sat there and thought, 'A lot of people are watching this and thinking this doesn't make sense.' But I knew we would all report what Miller said, quote Kerry's people saying it wasn't true, and move on to the next story."

And that, Adair decided, was no way to cover a presidential race.

Three years later, he launched PolitiFact.com, a fact-checking Web site for the 2008 campaign run by the St. Petersburg Times and Congressional Quarterly. Adair, now the Times' Washington bureau chief, heads a team of reporters who checks the accuracy of speeches, TV ads, quotes and other claims that pop up during a presidential race.

PolitiFact lays out the research behind each investigation and also rates claims on a Truth-O-Meter, which assigns a credibility score: true, mostly true, half-true, barely true, false or, in extreme cases, "pants on fire."

Last week, PolitiFact posted its 500th Truth-O-Meter ruling, and Adair said he is seeing their impact on campaigns and coverage. Candidates will pull back sometimes or revise a claim after PolitiFact disproves it. Political reporters increasingly are challenging unsubstantiated claims, which is a real shift from 2004 coverage, as Adair knows only too well.

"To a large extent, it was the nature of political reporting," he said.

"You're covering stops in four or five towns a day, filing one, two, three stories each day."

Daily deadlines are always a problem. But so is fear.

"We were scared into a 'false balance' in the face of critics saying, 'You guys are biased,'" Adair said. "It took us a while to find our voice and realize that once you have solid reporting, you should draw conclusions. It's taken us a while to be courageous enough to say, 'Facts are facts, and this candidate is wrong.'"

Lately, PolitiFact has spent considerable effort investigating the latest scourge of campaign inaccuracy: the chain e-mail. So far, the e-mails overwhelmingly target Barack Obama.

"The thing that most concerns me right now is that so many people seem to be basing their opinions on these e-mails," Adair said. "When we write the history of this election, I think we'll see that chain e-mail had a tremendous impact, particularly in shaping the public views of Obama."

Even when PolitiFact proves an e-mail utterly false, such as a recent one claiming that Obama is not a U.S. citizen, some voters refuse to change their minds — or hit the delete button.

"What is discouraging is the number of people who are willing to pass along these e-mails," Adair said. "It only takes two clicks to fill your whole address book, and they don't seem to feel an obligation to check for accuracy. They think, 'Hey, it came from Bob, and he's a decent guy, and he's usually right.'"

Campaign accuracy has become Adair's mission. His journalism career started at 16, when he wrote obits for a small paper. Thirty years later, he never has felt more charged up about being a journalist.

"I feel that, for the first time in my career, I'm really making a difference," he said. "We're doing what the press should be doing all the time."

It's also what the American public deserved all along.

Connie Schultz is a Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist for The Plain Dealer in Cleveland and the author of two books from Random House: "Life Happens" and "… and His Lovely Wife." To find out more about Connie Schultz (cschultz@plaind.com) and read her past columns, please visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.

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