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If Civil Beat is known for one thing, it’s for asking tough questions.

One way we do that is through our Fact Checks.

Our decision last July to begin subjecting the words of political candidates to scrutiny immediately caught fire with readers — and singed some candidates.

When we introduced Fact Checks, I explained them this way: “At Civil Beat, we’re committed to truth and transparency. Fact Check is meant to be a living example of that commitment. We’re not going to be a passive news organization, simply transmitting what politicians say. We’re going to hold their claims and their actions up to scrutiny, asking the tough questions that will help you make up your minds in this important election year.”

We continued to do Fact Checks after the political season because we heard from you that you appreciate them. We also learned they’re an excellent way to build understanding of important — and difficult — public issues.

That said, we’ve also learned how complicated — and controversial — they can be. A case in point came last week, when we analyzed the claim by a Republican fundraiser that her party had been outspent by Democrats 3-1 in 2010.

If true, it might help explain the party’s poor showing in the election — it lost the governor’s office and a seat in Congress and remained stuck at about 10 percent of the total seats in the Hawaii Legislature. But it also might have been a way to draw attention away from problems with the party’s positions and personalities — and, of course, to get party loyalists to dig deep in their pockets to fund future contests.

One thing we’ve learned from experience is that it’s always worth calling the person who made the statement we’re checking, even if the meaning of their words appears obvious on their face, as was the case in the political spending Fact Check. The person may be able to direct us to the best source to verify their claim or have knowledge essential to understanding it. And the person may have an explanation of their words that sets us off in a different direction. Finally, and perhaps most important of all, the subjects of our Fact Checks won’t be surprised when we publish our findings.

In the case of the statement on political spending, we chose to narrowly examine the claim based on the intention of the speaker as it was reported to us after the fact. Had we chosen to examine the statement on the basis of the words alone, we might have concluded that it was Half True because while Democrats out-raised Republicans in 2010 State races, they spent most of that time fighting each other in primary races, versus fighting Republicans in the general race.

As you probably already can see, there would have been a number of ways for us to approach the question what outspent meant.

There are often a number of different ways to look at a statement to decide whether or not it is supported by the facts. We try to choose the best approach to get at the heart of the subject at hand.

Among the choices when examining what someone said verbally are:

1. The words that were said, without regard to context such as emotional content (e.g. sarcasm).

2. The impression left by the words in the audience that heard them at the time they were uttered. This attempts to take into account the entire context of the utterance, including its emotional content and its environmental context (e.g. location, who is standing next to the speaker, etc.)

3. The impression on those that hear or read the words later, either by viewing or hearing a recording of the original utterance, or by hearing or reading a third-party report of the utterance. Because of the variety of contexts that this includes, it is practically impossible to determine a single “impression” for all of the possible contexts. However, there may be situations where we choose to investigate a particular context, for example a re-broadcast of a person’s utterance to an audience of supporters on a different island. 

4. The intention of the speaker as reported to us by the speaker or their representative after the fact.

For a non-verbal statement, such as a press release, we might examine:

1. The particular words written, absent the context of the rest of the document in which the words appeared.

2. The particular words written, including the context of the rest of the document.

3. The impression left by the written words, when introduced to a reader by a third party in a particular context. For example, an opposition publication may frame a candidate’s words in a negative light.

4. The intention of the author as reported to us by the author or their representative after the fact.

5. The intention of the author/publisher of a publication which included the author’s statement, as reported to us after the fact. 

There are many other contexts and angles from which a verbal or written statement can be approached, but these seem to be the ones we consider most often.

I hope this this helps explain how complicated Fact Checks really are, and the role of editorial judgment in how they are approached. Another editor or publication might approach the same claim from completely different directions, and might therefore arrive at different conclusions about whether or not the facts supported the claim.

When doing a Fact Check, there may be a number of ways to approach the same statement, and each of them might result in a different grade for the speaker. That’s why we always try to be transparent about how we’re approaching a statement, so you can do your own Fact Check on our work.