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How does PolitiFact Georgia’s Truth-O-Meter work?
Our goal is to help you find the truth in American politics. Reporters from The Atlanta Journal-Constitution fact-check statements by local, state and national political leaders, including lobbyists and interest groups. We then rate them on the AJC Truth-O-Meter.
To fact-check a claim, reporters first contact the speaker to verify the statement. Next, the research begins. Reporters consult a variety of sources, including industry and academic experts. This research can take hours or a few days or even longer, depending on the claim. Reporters then compile the research into story form and include a recommended Truth-O-Meter ruling.
The fact check then moves on to a panel of veteran editors who debate the statement and the reporter’s recommended Truth-O-Meter ruling. The panel votes on a final ruling; majority prevails.
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Truth-O-Meter rulings
The goal of the Truth-O-Meter is to reflect the relative accuracy of a statement.
The meter has six ratings, in decreasing level of truthfulness:
TRUE – The statement is accurate and there’s nothing significant missing.
MOSTLY TRUE – The statement is accurate but needs clarification or additional information.
HALF TRUE – The statement is partially accurate but leaves out important details or takes things out of context.
MOSTLY FALSE – The statement contains an element of truth but ignores critical facts that would give a different impression.
FALSE – The statement is not accurate.
PANTS ON FIRE – The statement is not accurate and makes a ridiculous claim.
Will Gov. Nathan Deal be re-elected to a second four-year term?
Or will the grandson of former President Jimmy Carter be able to help Democrats reclaim the governor’s office?
In the race to succeed retiring U.S. Sen. Saxby Chambliss, will voters choose the daughter of former Democratic U.S. Sen. Sam Nunn or the cousin of former Republican Gov. Sonny Perdue?
Those questions face voters Nov. 4. And that means the non-partisan fact-checkers at PolitiFact or PolitiFact Georgia have been working overtime to check some of the checkable claims and counterclaims of the candidates on topics from the Farm Bill to outsourcing and women in poverty.
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David Perdue on Tuesday, October 7th, 2014 in a U.S. Senate debate
Four million women have fallen into poverty in the last six years.
During a debate in Perry, Republican U.S. Senate candidate David Perdue was asked about his stance on minimum wage and how to create jobs. He told the crowd that Democratic opponent Michelle Nunn Nunn was trying to “tear down” his business career to detract from her support of President Barack Obama.
“She supports the economic policies of this administration, one that put 4 million women in poverty in six years,” Perdue said.
Other Republicans have made similar claims this year as both parties vie for the female vote and control of the U.S. Senate.
They’re based on Census data showing the number of females living in poverty rose from 22.131 million in 2008 to 25.840 million in 2012, for an increase of 3.7 million.
Two problems: they are using data from 2008, a year before Obama took office; they are counting all females, including children, as women.
Looking at the data from 2009, when Obama’s policies could have an impact, through 2013, the increase in women in poverty drops to 1.5 million. (That’s when you count females 18 and over). That’s too many but a far cry from 4 million.
We rated Perdue’s statement Mostly False.
Michelle Nunn on Tuesday, October 7th, 2014 in a U.S. Senate debate
David Perdue did not support the 2014 farm bill that U.S. Sens. Isakson and Chambliss did.
U.S. Senate hopefuls Michelle Nunn and David Perdue have both said they want to serve on the Senate agriculture committee.
But Nunn, a Democrat, and Perdue, a Republican, differ on the Farm Bill, which passed with support from Georgia’s sitting senators, Johnny Isakson and Saxy Chambliss.
Republican opponents of the bill claimed that cuts to food stamps, officially known as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program or SNAP, that were part of the bill did not go far enough. Democrats said the cuts were too severe.
Perdue sided with the opponents, said spokesman Derrick Dickey. Perdue believed that Congress missed an opportunity for a broader overhaul of the food stamp program.
That sort of debate would require a bifurcated bill, to fund agriculture and nutrition.
But it is an overreach to imply that opposition to the bill translates into opposition to farmers or to agriculture.
We rated Nunn’s claim Mostly True.
Michelle Nunn on Tuesday, October 7th, 2014 in a U.S. Senate debate
The United States was not one of 16 countries where David Perdue said in his Pillowtex deposition that he created jobs.
David Perdue gave some blunt statements about outsourcing during a deposition for a bankruptcy lawsuit against Pillowtex, a North Carolina textile company that failed shortly after Perdue’s brief tenure as its CEO.
Most of the political hay comes from Perdue saying that he “spent most of my career” establishing work and supply lines in foreign countries.
At the Oct. 7 debate, Michelle Nunn, his Democratic opponent for U.S. Senate, pounced.
“He talked about 16 countries,” Nunn said. “Not once did he talk about creating jobs in the United States.”
Nunn is accurate to say Perdue lists job creation in 16 countries in his 2005 deposition. The United States isn’t one of them.
But legal experts say it is unfair to focus too much on a missing answer in a deposition, since the real culprit would be a missing question.
Nunn’s claim contains an element of truth but takes it out of context to be misleading.
We rated Nunn’s statement as Mostly False.
John McCain on Sunday, October 12th, 2014 in comments on CNN’s “State of the Union”
“We were told there would never be a case of Ebola in the United States.”
On Sunday, October 12th, 2014, U.S. Sen. John McCain said Americans were told there would “never be a case of Ebola in the United States, and obviously that’s not correct.”
Based on public statements, President Barack Obama and CDC officials have repeatedly said there’s a chance an Ebola case could appear in the United States. They said the possibility of an outbreak is extremely low.
But we found no instance in which an official said Ebola would “never” make it here — rather, it has always been acknowledged as a possibility.
We rated McCain’s claim False.
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