PolitiFact’s Jan. 28, 2022 fact check of a claim by Fox News’ Sean Hannity mistakenly rated his claim as though it used an “or” conditional instead of an “and” conditional. The resulting conclusion (“False”) flew in the face of logic. We noticed a fair amount of pushback against PolitiFact’s conclusion on Twitter, but after PolitiFact spent days making no move to correct the mistake Zebra Fact Check sent a formal correction request.
Below the image of our correction request we include the confirmation email we received from PolitiFact.
Dear Truth-O-Meter,
Your Jan. 28, 2022 fact check of a claim by Sean Hannity needs a correction and a new “Truth-O-Meter” rating.
The fact check finds it “False” that “There’s never been a president (before Joe Biden) that has made race and gender the defining factor” for a Supreme Court nomination.
To cinch its point, the fact check tried to use examples where a president used gender or some other single factor as a key criterion for the nomination.
But that’s a wrongheaded approach to the question. Hannity’s claim specified “race and gender” and not “race or gender.”
The difference is not small, and any fact checker with basic search engine competence should easily see that.
Googling “race” AND “gender” turns up a different set of results than Googling “race” OR “gender” and pretty much everybody knows that. Results for the former will feature hits that include both terms. Results for the latter will return results featuring one or the other or both. The logic and “and” and “or” works the same way in ordinary communications.
That’s why when a restaurant menu says the entree comes with soup or salad you get only one of the two without an upcharge. If the meal comes with soup and salad you get both with no upcharge.
So the basic logic of Hannity’s claim means that no president has made both race and gender criteria for nominating a justice.
Using counterexamples where one of the two criteria was used results in invalid counterexamples.
The evidence PolitiFact used to justify its “False” rating cannot justify that rating. Not even close.
Please correct the item in accord with the demands of logic and your commitment to open and honest corrections under the IFCN Code of Principles.
Thanks!
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Thanks,
PolitiFact team