PolitiFact reviewed a statement from an Obama campaign ad that said “Mitt Romney’s companies were pioneers in outsourcing U.S. jobs to low-wage countries.” In their ruling PolitiFact stated: “We find little evidence that the particular firms were ‘pioneers in outsourcing.'” Despite the lack of evidence, they blundered into assigning a “Half True” rating to the statement.
The ruling was the result of curious decision by PolitiFact:
We decided to fact-check two parts of the Obama campaign’s statement. Were these really Romney‘s companies? And were these companies actually ‘pioneers in outsourcing’?
The Obama campaign’s statement is simply a copular sentence. There’s the subject: “Mitt Romney’s companies”; the linking verb: “were”; and the subject complement: “pioneers in outsourcing U.S. jobs to low-wage countries.” PolitFact decided to fact check the subject of such a sentence while disregarding the subject complement. That is, they decided to fact check the phrase “Mitt Romney’s companies” and then found that to be accurate–hence, the “Half True” rating.
I suppose one could assign the same rating to the statement, “PolitiFact’s articles are full of nothing but falsehoods,” because the articles are, after all, PolitiFact’s. But one could only do this by committing the same error that PolitiFact did. You can’t verify the subject of the sentence while ignoring the subject complement. Defining the relationship between the two is the whole purpose of a copular sentence.
The Obama campaign’s statement should not have been difficult to analyze. PolitiFact found the evidence to refute it. The analysis went off the rails with the botched decision to validate the phrase “Mitt Romney’s companies.” That led to the erroneous “Half True” ruling.
A good understanding of English grammar and usage is critical to quality fact checking. It’s dispiriting to see PolitiFact blunder with such a basic type of sentence.
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