Your local team of truth-seekers, better known as PolitiFact Georgia, did its best this year to sort through an avalanche of political rhetoric cascading from the campaign trail to the state Capitol and points in between.
Our goal is to parse political truth from political fiction by combining in-depth reporting and the trusty Truth-O-Meter. And that means busting down to Half True statements that are misleading or need additional context to be fully understood by the reader.
Here’s a few of our Half True ratings from 2015.
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Abbreviated versions of our fact checks are below. Full versions can be found at www.politifact.com/georgia/.
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Hank Johnson on June 15 in a House floor speech
“Two weeks ago, a man entered the world’s busiest airport in Atlanta, Georgia, carrying a loaded AR-15 automatic weapon with an extended-capacity, 100-round magazine.”
When Jim Cooley carried his AR-15 rifle fully loaded with a 100-round drum into Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport in May, it revived a Georgia congressman’s efforts to restrict weapons in airports nationwide.
“Two weeks ago, a man entered the world’s busiest airport in Atlanta, Georgia, carrying a loaded AR-15 automatic weapon with an extended capacity, 100-round magazine,” U.S. Rep. Hank Johnson, D-Lithonia, said in a House floor speech June 15.
“Mr. Speaker, actions like this, which follow shootings at airports in Los Angeles and Houston, undermine public security in the same way as yelling ‘fire’ in a crowded theater,” Johnson said.
He was attempting to revive his proposed Airport Security Act, a measure to ban loaded weapons outside airports’ security areas. Federal law already bans carrying weapons through airport security checkpoints.
Johnson called the gun an “automatic weapon,” something he and his staff later conceded was incorrect. The magazine, with the capability to shoot 100 rounds without reloading, was right.
Tom Graves on Feb. 24 in a press release
President Barack Obama’s veto of the Keystone XL pipeline killed “42,000 jobs.”
President Barack Obama carried through with his threat to veto a bill approving construction of the Keystone XL pipeline almost as soon as it hit his desk, and project supporters were equally quick to pounce.
Among those criticizing the veto was U.S. Rep Tom Graves of Ranger, who accused Obama of “putting partisan politics in front of all the families who would benefit from the good paying jobs” resulting from the pipeline project.
“The president’s veto of 42,000 jobs is appalling,” Graves said in a press release on Feb. 24, the same day as the veto.
Keystone XL supporters have long said thousands of new jobs would be created by the controversial project that has been in the works since 2008.
In January 2014, the State Department issued a report estimating that the pipeline project would support 42,000 jobs, most lasting no more than a year or two during the construction phase. No more than 50 permanent jobs would be needed, the department found.
When the average person hears that a project has an $8 billion impact and will add 42,000 jobs, he or she is apt to be thinking that more than 50 of those jobs will be long-term. That’s a lot of missing context.
City of Atlanta on Aug. 8, 2o14, in a press release
Tyler Perry’s plan to turn a majority of the former Fort McPherson into a film and television studio is expected “to add over 8,000 new jobs to Atlanta.”
Tyler Perry has a studio in southwest Atlanta and is about to seal the deal on developing a much larger film and television studio at shuttered Fort McPherson.
Atlanta officials say they are likely only weeks away from closing the deal on the largest business investment to take place on Atlanta’s Southside in decades.
By mid-May, they hope to make official the sale of 330 acres at the Army’s former Fort McPherson to the actor and filmmaker for $30 million.
The project could mean “over 8,000 new jobs, including the relocation of 350 jobs,” according a city press release on Aug. 8, 2014, announcing tentative agreement between Perry and a government agency overseeing the post’s redevelopment.
That jobs forecast has been repeated frequently. Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed, however, has parsed his words more carefully, saying the project will create “hundreds” of jobs and enhance the area culturally and economically.
PolitiFact decided to check the numbers.
Brian Hooker, the executive director of the McPherson Implementing Local Redevelopment Authority, told us the job numbers were formulated with data from Perry’s own organization. They assume that 10 to 20 productions — each involving 200 to 300 skilled union and nonunion workers, as well as on-screen talent — will be in the works at the studio at all times, Hooker said.
That’s important and missing context that doesn’t diminish the project but shortchanges the reader.
Bloomberg.com on March 31 in a news report
Delta Air Lines has had the most animal deaths among U.S. carriers in the past five years
A new tracking device was supposed to calm passengers who fly Delta and bring Fido along in the cargo hold.
But coverage of the gadget to monitor temperature and crate positioning may have had the opposite effect.
“Delta has had the most animal deaths among U.S. carriers in the past five years, with 51, though it has had only six since 2013,” according to a Bloomberg.com news report on March 31.
PolitiFact Georgia found Bloomberg was correct on the numbers.
But we also saw the need to put them into the proper perspective. Fifty-one pets died out of tens of thousands that Delta flies every year in its plane cargo holds.
Concerned about an increase in deaths in 2011, Delta expanded its restrictions on certain pets. In particular, it stopped accepting snub-nosed pets such as bulldogs or Pekingese as checked items because the animals have more difficulty breathing.
The numbers are accurate but misleading, especially when Delta’s compared with other, typically smaller, airlines.
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