Voice’s Fact Check King: One False Claim Is Found Every Week

Politics & Media Mashup: your weekend news aggregator leads off with a Q & A with Keegan Kyle, the Fact Check King at voiceofsandiego.org. Also included: Gobs of links to some of the week’s best stories about local, state and national politics as well as social and traditional media.

If you read voiceofsandiego.org you read Keegan Kyle, who is Voice’s Fact Check King. The site’s Fact Check blog, which Kyle manages, is one of its most popular offerings. Most politicos and their staffers fear the Fact Check because there is a good chance a call from Kyle will lead to tags like “Misleading,” “False” or the dreaded “Huckster Propaganda.” A Wisconsin native, Kyle arrived at Voice in 2009 after covering police and politics at several newspapers. Here is Rostra’s Q & A with San Diego’s preeminent fact checker:

• I believe someone at the St. Petersburg Times created the first Fact Check. Where did the idea for the Voice’s Fact Check come from?

It was a mix of old and new. VOSD has always been in the business of fact checking public officials. With the Fact Check, we simply added a more reader-friendly format, a rating system and a weekly TV segment.

The format was inspired by PolitiFact, the Pulitzer-Prize winning website run by The St. Petersburg Times in Florida. PolitiFact shares a similar mission. We adapted the idea to local affairs and expanded it beyond politics to any claims in the public sphere.

• How did you come to be the Fact Check King at the Voice?

I specialize in finding numbers and analyzing data. Examining the accuracy of a claim often boils down to numbers, so putting me in charge of the Fact Check seemed like a natural fit.

However, I’m definitely not the only VOSD reporter who works on the project. All of us write Fact Checks, contribute ideas or add valuable insight to the reporting. I write most of the Fact Checks because it’s my primary assignment.

• How often does the Voice post Fact Checks?

We aim for publishing at least two stories a week, but it depends on the complexity of the claims we’re examining. Sometimes it’s worth digging into a claim for an entire week because it’s really important to an ongoing issue and the surrounding public discussion. Sometimes they take an hour.

The number of Fact Checks also tends to pick up around campaign season or budget discussions, when many more people are trying to influence important decisions through bold claims in the court of public opinion.

• How many Fact Checks has the Voice done, and how many have you done?

I’m not sure how many we’ve collectively done since we started two years ago. I do know we’ve found an average of one false claim per week because I review all false claims for our annual Whopper of the Year contest. (County Supervisor Bill Horn won this year.)

• Do you know how popular Fact Checks are compared to other Voice stories?

It’s one of the most visited sections of our website and appears to be well-known in the community, though that’s much harder to gauge. Our stories reach thousands each week through our website and our media partners, NBC 7 San Diego and AM 600 KOGO.

I’ve seen public officials reference the Fact Check in meetings, and I’ve seen it used as political ammunition in campaigns. They tend to focus on our ratings, but we often hear how much people learned by simply reading a Fact Check. In that way, it’s just a different vehicle for storytelling and explanation.

• You do more than write Fact Checks. Tell us about that.

Writing for the Fact Check is about one-third of my job. Most of my other coverage has focused on public safety issues and local politics, and I create VOSD’s infographics.

• Do you have a favorite Fact Check? Tell us about it.

I don’t have a favorite, but an October 2010 claim by Eric Christen, executive director of Coalition for Fair Employment in Construction, sticks out in my memory. It’s one of the only times we’ve changed a rating after we published a Fact Check.

Christen intended to make an incorrect claim about student graduation rates but accidentally used a double negative and flipped the claim’s literal meaning. We originally missed the double negative and rated the claim False. After realizing our mistake, we changed the rating to Barely True.

We learned from that experience and haven’t made a similar mistake since.

• What was your least favorite/most difficult Fact Check. Why?

I don’t have a least favorite. The level of difficultly can depend on how much people cooperate. In some cases, agencies require that we formally request public records and then don’t provide us with those records for several weeks. That obviously slows down our research.

• What is the most popular Voice Fact Check?

Based on the number of page visits, our most popular Fact Check last year examined how many people attend Sunday services at The Rock Church in Point Loma. Some residents complain the church’s visitors create all sorts of problems in the neighborhood, including noise and traffic congestion. But we found one estimate of those visitors overstated how many people actually visit the church.

• What percentage of the Fact Checks do you generate compared to those generated by editors/colleagues, sources and readers?

I don’t know the percentage but it’s a mix. We’re always looking for claims where the research would likely reveal something interesting about a broader issue or the person who made the claim. Some explain a topic while others hold people accountable.

• Tell us about the categories Fact Checks fall into and how and why those categories changed recently?

The categories range from “True” to “Huckster Propaganda” and their definitions are listed on our website. Though we’ve previously discussed changing the categories, we always decided it was unnecessary. The categories haven’t changed since we created the Fact Check.

• Can you break down for us where the Voice’s Fact Checks have fallen by category?

If you mean how often we’ve rated claims true, mostly true, etc. – I don’t know. We don’t track that kind of information. I’m only familiar with statistics for “False” and “Huckster Propaganda” claims because they qualify for our Whopper of the Year contest.

• So how does the determination process work? Is it all on the reporter to make the call or is it a team effort? If so, who is involved? What Fact Check determination was the toughest to reach?

Each reporter discusses the rating with their editor. If there’s a disagreement, they will sometimes bring another reporter or editor into the discussion. We don’t publish a story unless both the reporter and their editor are comfortable with the rating.

No one Fact Check comes to mind as being particularly tough. In general, we battle the most over the middle categories: “Mostly True,” “Barely True” and “Misleading.” Just one piece of context can make all the difference in weighing the claim’s level of accuracy.

• Anything else you want to add about Fact Checks, Voice, etc.?

People often misinterpret the Fact Check’s mission. We’re not here to test the validity of opinions or ideas. No matter how compelling an argument may be, people should present accurate information and expect to be held accountable if they violate that public trust.

Jerry Unplugged

Speaking of the Voice…Mayor Jerry Sanders took a shot at the local news site this week at the Downtown San Diego Partnership’s annual installation dinner. Sanders gave a mock State of the City and roasted a few people and things along the way. He said the U-T San Diego put WTF in waterfront. Ouch! And he said this about the Voice:

“And what can I say about my friends at Voice of San Diego? They mismanaged their budget last year. So they had to lay off 30 percent of their employees. Yet the very next day, they were back to claiming they know more about complex financial issues than we do. While at the same time, asking for handouts so they can pay their bills. I can handle it, though. I’ve raised teenagers.”

Here are links to some of the best stories of the week:

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