February 2003 Archive

THE ATLANTIC LINK IS UP: The write-up about Lying in Ponds in The Atlantic is now available online ("The Other CPI").

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The real problem with the partisanship index as it stands now lies in how it treats those columnists who make partisan references most rarely. Let us say, for example, that a pundit writes 10 columns of 1000 words each. Nine of these columns contain zero partisan references. The other column contains one positive Democratic reference. This pundit gets a partisanship index of D-50, and is considered even more partisan than most pundits who produce "balanced" partisan screeds, e.g. Frank Rich. I propose that you consider as a "neutral" reference 100 words without a partisan reference, to distinguish between partisan screeds and occasional partisan references.

Good question. I've always been concerned with that scenario, and if you look at Collin Levey's columns so far this year, you'll see that her anomalous score is an excellent example of the problem. But I'm less worried now for a couple of reasons.

When I selected a set of columnists to evaluate for 2003, I tried to choose those who cover mainly national politics rather than cultural issues or international or local politics. So I think it's unlikely that one of the current Lying in Ponds columnists will make only one partisan reference in ten columns. Although Ms. Levey's score is very anomalous so far this year, it's only February. In her 2002 columns, she made enough partisan references (26 negative and no positive Democratic references) to convince me that her high score was justified.

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I disgaree with the "solution" of weighting R references and D references at 50%.

Most columnists in 2002 found a way to have at least have a 35%/65% split of their references to one party vs another. 8 of the top 10 did in 2002 anyway.

Krugman had one of the largest republican/democrat reference ratios in 2002 of almost anyone in the whole list. Isn't this signifcant in itself? Aren't you destroying data by ignoring his ratio reference difference vs other columnists?

I have to agree that if a columnist chooses to overwhelmingly write about their least favorite party, it's probably meaningful and should be reflected somehow in the scores. I need to think about this and look more closely at the numbers before making a change. As always, opinions will be welcomed.

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The sad truth is that for many years NASA has struggled to invent reasons to put people into space -- sort of the way the Bush administration struggles to invent reasons to . . . but let's not get into that today. It's an open secret that the only real purpose of the International Space Station is to give us a reason to keep flying space shuttles.

I was a bit surprised at the #5 ranking for Ann Coulter, expecting her to rank much higher. I therefore took a quick look at the first of the columns used in determining her rank. Not surpisingly, three of the her four positive references to Democrats appear in a quote by John Kerrey.

According to your methodololgy:

"When political figures are themselves quoted, it usually is evaluated as a positive reference unless the statement is clearly being ridiculed."

After quoting Kerry, Coulter writes:

"There's a rallying cry to unite the Democrats! If there has been a material breach "by everybody's standard," then and only then, we can boldly ... go to the United Nations! "

Isn't that clearly ridiculing Kerry's stance (or at the very least, detectable sarcasm), and aren't the positive references to Stevenson and the Kennedy Administration being made by Kerry and not Coulter? Or did I misunderstand the methodology?

I've found evaluating quotes to be pretty difficult. Here are three examples of quotes from the Ann Coulter column Mr. Garcia refers to:

1. All three of the following are evaluated as negative references to Democrats:

   John Kerry says he thought a resolution authorizing the president to use force against Iraq meant that the United Nations would have to approve. Dianne Feinstein said she voted for the resolution assuming it meant we would invade only if "our allies" approved. Joe Biden made the terrific argument that if we don't wait for U.N. approval, it would "make a mockery of the efficacy of the U.N."

   John Kerry is paraphrased rather than quoted. Dianne Feinstein gets only a two-word quote ("our allies"), not enough to be meaningful. Joe Biden gets a longer quote, but it is introduced in a hostile way ("made the terrific argument").

2. In the following, John Kerry is allowed a quote long enough to get his point across, but a negative attribution verb ("claims") and a sarcastic word ("foursquare") is used to undercut the quote, so I split the difference and evaluated it as neutral:

   Kerry claims he is still foursquare behind disarming Saddam Hussein, but not "until we have exhausted the remedies available, built legitimacy and earned the consent of the American people, absent, of course, an imminent threat requiring urgent action."

3. In the final example, Mr. Kerry is given an entire paragraph to state his case, which could be convincing to the reader despite Ms. Coulter's subsequent disagreement with it. So the reference to Kerry is evaluated as positive, along with his praise of other Democrats in the quote itself:

   That's the short version. The long version of Kerry's position is this:

   "[I]f you have a breach that, by everybody's standard, at least in the United States, those of us in the House and Senate, and the president, join together and make a judgment, this is indeed a material breach, and then others -- some of them can't be persuaded -- if we have evidence, sufficient to show the materiality of the breach, we should be able to do what Adlai Stevenson did on behalf of the administration, Kennedy administration, and sit in front of the Security Council and say, 'Here is the evidence. It's time for all of you to put up. We need to all do this together.' And that's what I think the resolution that was passed suggests."

While the column as a whole was very negative toward Democrats, the use of quotes resulted in some individual positive references. My point is just that a columnist has the ability to use quotes in a variety of ways, ranging from ridicule to respect.

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In citing this poll, though, Dowd should also have cited a crucial piece of information that accompanies it. Just below the poll results on its website, CNN cautions the following: "This QuickVote is not scientific and reflects the opinions only of those Internet users who have chosen to participate. The results cannot be assumed to represent the opinions of Internet users in general, nor the public as a whole."

In other words, the numbers are essentially meaningless.

CNN anchor Wolf Blitzer was careful to acknowledge this when he cited the poll on his show, "CNN Wolf Blitzer Reports," on Friday, stating, "Remember, of course, this is not -- repeat, not -- a scientific poll."

Dowd, however, leads her readers astray by making them think there's some evidence for her contention about what "Most Americans" think. With the proliferation of unscientific polls online, the public should be able to expect that when polls are cited in the media without qualification, they really mean something.

               (D+ + R-) - (R+ + D-) 
 PI = 100 * ---------------------------
            D+ + D- + D= + R+ + R- + R=
 

where D+, D- and D= are the number of positive, negative and neutral Democratic references, and R+, R- and R= are positive, negative and neutral Republican references. If we define the total number of Democratic references as Dt = D+ + D- + D=, and the total number of Republican references as Rt = R+ + R- + R=, we can define the "Democratic Index" to be DI = (D+ - D-)/Dt and the "Republican Index" to be RI = (R+ - R-)/Rt. These express how a pundit treats only one party; they will range from +1 for only praise to -1 for only criticism.

The equation for PI can then be rearranged to form:

                     Dt             Rt
 PI = 100 * ( DI --------- - RI --------- )
                 (Dt + Rt)      (Dt + Rt)
 

The second part of each term consists of each party's fraction of the total references. That's where the problem comes in, because there are currently far more references to Republicans. That makes a columnist's final PI mostly reflect how they treat Republicans. So a columnist like Frank Rich is ranked as a strong partisan despite being mostly negative toward Democrats, because his Democratic component is overwhelmed by the greater frequency of his criticism of the Republican administration in power.

My idea is simply to equally weight the Democratic and Republican components, thus awarding the highest partisanship scores to pundits who most strongly support one party while simultaneously opposing the other:

 PI = 100 * 0.5 * ( DI - RI )
 

When I recalculate last year's results using this new formula, there are significant changes:

2002 Top Ten, Current Method
1	Paul Krugman	82
2	Collin Levey	57
3	Claudia Rosett	46
4	Robert L. Bartley	37
5	Michael Kelly	34
6	Mary McGrory	33
7	Daniel Henninger	30
8	Frank Rich	28
9	Michael Kinsley	24
10	Pete du Pont	24

2002 Top Ten, Proposed Method
1	Paul Krugman	58
2	Claudia Rosett	54
3	Collin Levey	52
4	Michael Kelly	33
5	Robert L. Bartley	32
6	Mary McGrory	26
7	Pete du Pont	26
8	Charles Krauthammer	23
9	Daniel Henninger	23
10	Thomas J. Bray	22

Paul Krugman would still have finished first, but weighting his Democratic and Republican components equally would lower his partisanship score by 24 points, bringing Claudia Rosett and Collin Levey into range. Frank Rich would have benefitted even more from the change, dropping from 28 to 1 (!), because of his strongly negative treatment of both Democrats and Republicans.

I'm going to think about it for a few days and then decide whether to switch to the new method. Drop me some e-mail if you have any comments.

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METEOROLOGICAL MECCA: I'm off today for a few days in Boulder, Colorado to attend a workshop on Antarctic meteorology. As the home of the National Center for Atmospheric Research, Boulder has a greater concentration of weather people than anywhere else in the country and it's always great to be there. I'll try to update Lying in Ponds from the road.

I haven't done anything Antarctic since grad school, when I was fortunate enough to spend three weeks at McMurdo Station. It's fun to see Antarctica like this, but quite a lot more comfortable to see it this way.

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