fact check

Yes on 72 radio advertisement needs context

Anonymous — Sun, 23 Oct 2016 20:22:20 +0000

Yes on 72 radio advertisement needs context Anonymous (not verified) Sun, 10/23/2016 - 14:22 Sola Lawal

On Tuesday, Colorado residents will vote on Amendment 72, a ballot initiative supporting a $1.75 tax increase on cigarettes and a 22 percent increase of the manufacturer’s list price on tobacco products. The Campaign for a Healthy Colorado, which supports the amendment, recently released a radio ad making various claims about Coloradan tobacco users and how the ballot initiative would affect them.

The ad claims the following:

The fact is that 80 percent of smokers start as kids. The fact is, voting yes on 72 and raising cigarette taxes is the proven way to change this.
The fact is, thousands of Colorado kids will become smokers this year. The fact is, voting yes on 72 is the proven way to change this.
The fact is, cigarettes kill more than 5,000 Coloradans every year. The fact is, voting yes on 72 is the proven way to change this.

The smoking statistics are true, but the claims that the amendment will solve the smoking problem are overstated and do not account for a considerable demographic of smokers.

“The fact is that 80% of smokers start as kids.”

This is true. According to a 2012 report by the U.S. surgeon general more than 80 percent of adult smokers begin smoking by the time they’re 18 years old.

“The fact is thousands of Colorado kids will become smokers this year.”

The U.S Department of Health and Human Services released an underage daily smoker estimate based on a 2015 National Survey on Drug Use and Health predicting that 2,400 kids (under 18) will become new daily smokers in Colorado this year. Therefore, this statement is true.

“The fact is cigarettes kill more than 5,000 Coloradans every year.”

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reports that 5,100 adults in Colorado die from smoking each year, according to the 2014 report, Best Practices for Comprehensive Tobacco Control Programs.

“The fact is voting yes on 72 is the proven way to change this.”

It is proven that raising cigarette prices is a more effective policy measure for reducing smoking behavior among youth, young adults, and persons of low socioeconomic status, compared to the general population.

In contrast, there was a lack of evidence about the impact of price on smoking behavior in persons with a dual diagnosis, heavy and/or long-term smokers and smokers who are not of a low socioeconomic status according to the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI).

Persons with a dual diagnosis are identified as “smokers who are diagnosed with mental health and/or non-nicotine substance abuse disorders who are disproportionately affected by tobacco dependence. In North America, five to 10 percent of the population has a diagnosable mental illness. Yet, they carry almost half the burden of Canadian and US tobacco consumption, smoking approximately 40 percent of all cigarettes consumed,” according to the NCBI.

“It will benefit those most affected by smoking—helping them to quit and accelerating research in Colorado to prevent and treat diseases like lung cancer, asthma and heart disease.”

Campaign for a Healthy Colorado states that the money raised by this tax will total about $315 million a year. Those funds would be distributed to mitigate harm for smokers and prevent new smokers in Colorado.

Ultimately, the data cited in this ad is true. However, the ad becomes misleading when claiming voting yes on 72 is a proven way to change various data. There are some policies behind yes on 72 that have records of success, but do not account for heavy/long-term smokers, persons with a dual diagnosis, and people who are not of a low socioeconomic status.

Sola Lawal is a senior in the journalism department of the College of Media, Communication, and Information at the University of Colorado Boulder. She has served as a contributing writer for the media publication Verge Campus and interned for an international reporting group while studying abroad in Prague.

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CU News Corps survey finds voters to be receptive to fact checking, but debate over merits continues

Anonymous — Fri, 16 Jan 2015 07:00:00 +0000

CU News Corps survey finds voters to be receptive to fact checking, but debate over merits continues Anonymous (not verified) Fri, 01/16/2015 - 00:00 Lars Gesing , Peri Duncan , and Paul McDivitt

Aiming to make sense of a relentless surge of political advertisements, journalistic fact-checking projects in Colorado reached large numbers of Front Range voters, who found those endeavors to be generally effective in this year’s midterm election season, a CU News Corps/Aspen Research survey found.
Despite a one-sided ad-to-fact check ratio, 79 percent of the 400 surveyed registered voters in nine counties along Colorado’s Front Range said they had watched or read at least one fact check, such as the 9News “Truth Test.” Two out of three (66 percent) said those fact checks were effective at helping them frame an issue.

The findings provide moral support to journalists in Colorado and the U.S., who in the next 23 months will again take on the powerful machine of political advertisers as the 2016 presidential race rolls around.

“News organizations are seeing that these things are popular and that it’s impactful, effective and well done,” said the American Press Institute’s Jane Elizabeth, who travels across the country encouraging newsrooms to step up their fact-checking efforts.

Elizabeth believes it is up to journalists to provide the missing context to non-stop political advertising.

To put Colorado’s political journalists’ fact-checking efforts into perspective, CU News Corps also analyzed ad buys during the 35-day period leading up to Election Day. It revealed that the four major TV stations in the Denver market – NBC 9, CBS 4, ABC 7 and Fox 31 – aired almost 200 hours of political advertisements from Oct. 1 to Nov. 4, charging $40 million in fees.

This election cycle, Denver was among the top media markets by ad volume, according to Kantar Media/CMAG, underscoring Colorado’s national importance as a swing-state. With so much at stake, the campaigns frequently used negative ads. According to the Cook Political Report, Colorado led the nation in negative ad occurrences throughout all Senate and Governors’ races.

Colorado newsrooms tried to match the ad pummeling with varying degrees of commitment to fact checking. 9News led the field with eight different “Truth Tests” in that same 35-day period. 7News, on the other hand, didn’t air a single fact check.

Journalists and media analysts continue to debate the merits of fact-checking projects and their limited resources in the face of seemingly endless streams of money flowing into hundreds of hours of political advertising.

The ad-to-fact-check ratio, critics argue, makes the journalistic efforts a quixotic tilt at windmills.

“Getting called out for an ad that’s blatantly false isn’t all that humiliating,” said Eli Stokols, a political reporter at Fox31 in Denver. “The humiliation doesn’t get amplified to the same degree that the ads do.”

Brendan Nyhan is a political scientist and media critic at Dartmouth University, and a regular contributor to “The Upshot,” the New York Times’ data-driven politics and policy analysis website. He asks fact-checkers – and their funders – to temper their cynicism.

“The fact that we haven’t gotten rid of inaccuracy in politics doesn’t mean that fact-checking has failed,” he said.

PolitiFact creator Bill Adair, a journalism and public policy professor at Duke University, explained in an email that, “The goal of fact-checking is not to get politicians to stop lying. The goal is, like all journalism, to inform democracy. Fact-checkers do that extremely well and it has empowered voters throughout the world with important information.”

Survey: 9News’ commitment to fact checking pays off

The CU News Corps/Aspen Research data supports Nyhan’s suggestion. The poll surveyed 400 registered voters along the northern Front Range – those people who are generally more likely to seek out information and engage in political conversation.

One central finding of the poll: The efforts that 9News, the market leader in Denver metro area television news, and political reporter Brandon Rittiman put into fact checking paid off. Thirty-nine percent of respondents said they had watched at least one “Truth Test.”

That number was by far the highest among all major fact-checkers. FactCheck.org, a non-partisan fact-checking project at the University of Pennsylvania’s Annenberg Public Policy Center, and CBS4’s “Reality Check” (both 18 percent) followed. An additional 12 percent mentioned PolitiFact, and 8 percent had read a Denver Post “Fact Lab” story.

More good news for avid fact checkers, especially in television news: Their medium still makes up the single-largest information source for Front Range voters. One in three, or 33 percent, said they used television news to inform themselves about politics and the election, followed by online media (20 percent) and newspapers (12 percent). Only 1 percent, on the other hand, referred to advertising as an information source, suggesting that voters don’t take the claims of political ads as gospel.

Although 79 percent of respondents had read or watched a fact check, and 66 percent found them to be effective, the real impact of fact checking on the behavior of campaigns is hard to assess.

“Think of it like a state trooper parked on the side of the highway,” Bill Adair, the PolitiFact creator, wrote in an email. “How many drivers slow down and don’t break the speed limit because they know the state trooper is there? Probably lots. But there is no way to put a number on it.”

Peter Hanson, a political scientist at the University of Denver, said the problem with fact checks is that they don’t reach all of the audience they are targeting.

“The people who are reading those are likely to be highly partisan and have their minds already made up anyway,” he said. “People who are genuinely persuadable are generally a little less engaged in politics. It is possible that they would read that and that it would factor into their decision, but really people’s decisions are less likely to be motivated by that kind of thing and more motivated by a general sense of how the economy is doing and their overall impression of how the president is doing.”

Breakdown of ad buys by station shows: Political advertising drowns fact checks

A closer look at each of Denver’s four TV stations’ ad buys illustrates just how daunting a task fact checking was for Colorado’s political journalists.

CU News Corps analyzed each station’s filings with the Federal Communications Commission from Oct. 1 to Election Day on Nov. 4 and found that in those 35 days alone, NBC 9 aired almost 60 hours of political ads, raking in $15.25 million (minus agency commission fees). In the same time period, 9News ran eight “Truth Tests.”

The ratios don’t look much better for the other stations either.

CBS 4 flooded its airwaves with 36 hours, or $11.29 million worth of political ads. The news section responded with what one website operations staffer believed to be four “Reality Checks,” although he said the station no longer had access to a comprehensive archive of all of the “Reality Check” clips and airtimes.

Fox 31 collected $6.2 million for airing 41 hours of ads from the likes of Cory Gardner, John Hickenlooper and company. Its political reporters churned out half a dozen editions of its “Fact or Fiction” segment during that time.

And ABC 7’s advertising department sold the most political ads of all four stations, with 61.5 hours for $7.54 million, while its newsroom didn’t do a single fact check.

Kelty Logan, an advertising professor at the University of Colorado Boulder, said with so much money in the system and political advertising protected as political speech, there is a lot of pressure for candidates to come up with the most negative campaign to motivate the base.

“Slanting the truth has become the flavor of the day,” she said.

But for some, even fact checking each and every political ad wouldn’t solve what they believe to be the crux of the format.

“The problem I have with allowing so much of someone’s coverage to be dominated by fact checking ads is that when you add them all up, at the end of the day there is so much oversaturation,” said Eli Stokols, Fox 31’s political reporter who did several fact checks in early October because his editors had asked him to do at least a few for them to have a presence on the air. “”Even if you fact check every single one diligently, it all just gets too cluttered, messy and difficult for your audience to really keep all these different strings of research straight.”

Newsrooms struggle to balance economic constraints with labor-intensive fact-checking efforts

Economic considerations led 7News investigative reporter Marshall Zelinger to abandon his “Truth Tracker” segment this year, with only one exception in July, after it had made regular appearances on the air during the 2012 presidential campaign.

For CU-Boulder political communication specialist Elizabeth Skewes, such a decision is no surprise.

“It takes a lot of time, effort and funding to do good fact checking – and to stay on top of all the claims,” she said. “If you don’t have enough resources and you’re only spot checking, it can almost do a disservice.”

Zelinger said scheduling conflicts didn’t allow him to commit the time to the “Truth Tracker.” He said he kept bringing up the idea but was always beaten by the news of the day. He said he was not aware of any management decisions to bring in staff or hand the segment to another reporter.

But fact checking isn’t exclusively a TV news endeavor.

As Chuck Plunkett was preparing for the presidential debate on the University of Denver campus in 2012, the Denver Post politics editor started talking to university representatives about a potential collaboration to start fact checking the increasing number of political ads. Two years later, Plunkett taught a pilot program at the University of Denver, and a group of five students started contributing to the “Fact Lab.” Between Oct. 1 and Nov. 4, they published eight fact checks on the Post’s politics blog, “The Spot.”

Plunkett believes the media should do more. He said campaigns can hire “very slick, sophisticated people” to produce the ads. “They can create emotions and emotional reactions in the viewer that are hard to parse.”

The public, specifically the undecided voters who want to use their vote as well as possible, rely on journalists and fact checks, Plunkett added.

“The genius, if you can use that word, behind the better ads – and there are many good ones – is that they tell you enough of the truth to make it sound somewhat credible. Even an intelligible person with access to the internet would have to go through a few rabbit holes to figure out if the claims are valid.”

Plunkett said the Post’s pilot program could serve as a role model. “Given the fact that newsrooms everywhere have just been crippled by layoffs, it’s good to look to other venues to fulfill that role, as long as they are credible – like a university.”

National fact checkers fight over merits of rulings but agree that fact checks do good

FactCheck.org has proven that an independent fact-checking project at a university can be successful – even on the national level.

Director Eugene Kiely said the goal to change a candidate’s behavior is unrealistic. Instead, he strives to be a voter advocate.

FactCheck.org publishes stories on a wide variety of channels, from the USA Today print edition, website and its AdTracker app to Politico.com and the Bing News App.

Kiely and his four and a half staffers (one of them works only two days a week) can use the freedom that comes with operating outside the economic boundaries of a newsroom to rethink the approach to fact-checking.

In their case, that means getting rid of ratings. Kiely calls “pinocchios” and “half true” labels arbitrary.

“You really can’t justify them,” he said. “What’s the difference between half true and mostly true? It becomes subjective, and we deal with things objectively as much as we can.”

Sean Gorman disagrees. The PolitiFact Virginia reporter fact-checked the state’s neck-and-neck Senate race between Ed Gillespie and Mark Warner. He also took a close look at Dave Brat’s primary upset of then-House Majority Leader Eric Cantor.

“When folks disagree with the ruling, they will email and oftentimes come up with a really good rationale,” he said. “People engage with the rulings. That’s where the effectiveness comes in. People take in the information.”

Gorman said in the weeks leading up to the election, traffic on the PolitiFact Virginia website spiked.

He and Kiely agree that fact checking has its impact. The FactCheck.org director vividly remembers two instances from the 2012 presidential campaign trail. One was when Republican candidate Mitt Romney dropped the talking point that his company had created 100,000 jobs after eager fact checkers had pointed out that he couldn’t support the number. The other example was President Obama’s attempt to decry his challenger as the “outsourcer in-chief” who shipped jobs to Mexico and China. Repeatedly, fact checkers made it clear that while Romney later invested in the company in question, Bain Capital, he wasn’t doing work for them at the time. Obama stopped using the label.

Campaigns entering the fact-checking ring could be a game-changer

Whether it is the presidential race or a toss-up Senate contest in Colorado, as fact-checkers point out inconsistencies in campaign claims, getting labeled as biased by the candidate’s supporters and partisan hacks comes with the territory.

Dartmouth’s Brendan Nyhan said people are programmed to see the media as biased against them.

“That’s the cost of doing business in a partisan era. You have to be willing to take your lumps.”

Twenty-nine percent of respondents in the CU News Corps/Aspen Research survey said fact checks in Colorado anno 2014 were biased toward liberal views, while another 24 percent had sensed a bias toward conservative convictions.

Increasingly, political campaigns commandeer fact checks and re-spin them.

During debates and on the candidates’ websites, staffers fact-check their opponents in real time. But their goal isn’t the truth – it’s to convince yet another voter by stretching the truth the other way.

They also recycle favorable portions of fact checks to help prove a point in attack ads, hoping that the fact-check reference will lend credibility to their claim.

PolitiFact Virginia’s Sean Gorman said the campaigns understand that fact-checking is becoming a part of the political landscape.

“A lot of times we see our fact checks cited by the campaigns – and sometimes not correctly,” he said. “If they are mischaracterizing something we have said it is up to us to correct the record. Interestingly enough, when they do it, it becomes fodder for additional fact checks. it is kind of like being part of the conversation.”

But the API’s Jane Elizabeth said fact-check “could become a bad word” if campaigns continue to misuse it.

While fact-check advocates like her say that now more than ever journalists need to be the guardians of truth, siding with voters to tell them what’s right and wrong, others are not so sure if that has all the hoped-for effects.

Denver pollster Floyd Ciruli is one of those skeptics. He says voters are weary of hearing that all politicians are liars. He believes fact checks, however noble their cause, are contributing to that sentiment.

“It just reinforces the fact that we all are being convinced that there is little honesty out there.”

But Nyhan said, “when it comes to matters of fact, when the accuracy of a claim can be assessed, you are doing your reader or viewer a disservice if you don’t try to help them sort through the evidence.”

As he was doing research on fact-checking, Nyhan found proof that it actually has a positive effect.

“Legislators who received reminders of the threat of fact-checking were less likely to have the accuracy of their claims questioned publicly,” he said.

In the end, even with the effectiveness of fact checking hard to assess, the general question is: How many more accidents would there be if the state trooper wasn’t parked at the side of the highway?

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Personhood USA makes a series of false and deceptive claims about previous legislation

Anonymous — Tue, 04 Nov 2014 13:06:42 +0000

Personhood USA makes a series of false and deceptive claims about previous legislation Anonymous (not verified) Tue, 11/04/2014 - 06:06

One of the main supporters of the personhood legislation on Colorado ballots this November is Personhood USA. The group’s website hosts pages about Amendment 67 in Colorado and North Dakota’s Measure 1, another personhood issue up for vote.

The Personhood USA page about Amendment 67 makes the following statement:

“Last summer, those same lawmakers who opposed Heather’s efforts for justice passed the dishonestly-titled ‘Crimes against Pregnant Women Act.’ Planned Parenthood and pro-abortion politicians who opposed Heather’s efforts to bring justice for Brady, have now passed a law that specifically reinforces that babies like Brady are not persons and eliminates criminal liabilities for abortionists who kill women during an abortion. Governor Hickenlooper signed this law, which says that drunk drivers like the one who is responsible for Brady’s death could have as little as a $2,000 fine.”

Although this is a large statement, CU News Corps will break it down as clearly as possible.

The statement is found to be deceptive for the following reasons:

It uses the propaganda tactic of appealing to emotions:
- Referencing both Surovik and her unborn child by first name
- Using phrases such as “efforts for justice” and “dishonestly-titled”

The statement is found to be false for the following reasons:

It claims that the Crimes against Pregnant Women Act “eliminates criminal liabilities for abortionists who kill women during an abortion,” and
It claims that drunk drivers in similar situations “could have as little as a $2,000 fine.”

Appeal to Emotion: Deceptive

The statement deceives using the common tactic of appealing to the emotions of the reader. This approach is used in order to convince readers to believe something because of how it makes them feel, as opposed to using a valid or compelling argument to make their point. Some valid arguments may involve emotional aspects, but in these cases emotion is used to cloud the logic of an argument for a reader.

“This is done instead of appealing directly to the values and policies being debated,” said Kelsey Cody, a University of Colorado graduate student and writing instructor, for a previous CU News Corps fact check on another statement that used the appeal to emotion.

Because the personhood issue is very emotionally charged all around (women deserve the right to make their own medical decisions vs. an unborn child’s life is worth the same as that of a person of any age), arguments from both sides of the issue embrace the opportunity to manipulate readers’ emotions in order to make a point.

Referring to Surovik and her unborn child by name -“Heather,” the mother and “Brady,” the unborn child – personalizes the reader with the situation, and has the ability to make them feel closer or more attached and therefore less able to make an informed, logical decision. Through putting references such as this in their statements, the organization is equating the unborn child to a fully developed person in the mind of the reader.

Personhood USA’s statement also uses this method by presenting emotional opinions as truth. More specifically, using the phrases “efforts for justice” and “dishonestly-titled” in such a way implies fact, while these are solely opinions.

Stating that Surovik’s efforts are for “justice” strongly suggests that voting yes on Amendment 67 puts a reader on the morally sound side of the issue. According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, “justice” is defined as the quality of being just, and “just” is defined as agreeing with what is considered morally right or good. This phrasing occurs more than once in the statement, and is manipulative in a way often unnoticed by readers.

Labeling the Crimes against Pregnant Women Act as “dishonestly-titled,” although more obvious, presents the current legislation in a negative light. Using this phrase also exempts the website from explaining how the act is dishonest, as it presents a “fact” to the reader. This manipulation could be avoided if the author of the statement explained why the title is dishonest.

Claim about Current Legislation: False

According to Personhood USA’s claim, the Crimes against Pregnant Women Act“eliminates criminal liabilities for abortionists who kill women during an abortion.” The legislation referenced, HB 13-1154, states in the Bill Summary:

“The bill excludes from prosecution medical care for which the mother provided consent. The bill does not confer the status of “person” upon a human embryo, fetus, or unborn child at any stage of development prior to live birth. The bill repeals the criminal abortion statutes.”

Within the actual bill, it is further stated:

“Additionally, nothing in this act shall be construed to permit the imposition of criminal penalties against a woman for actions she takes that result in the termination of her pregnancy; and finally, nothing in this act shall be construed to permit the imposition of criminal penalties against a health care provider engaged in providing health care services to a patient.”

And finally, under the exclusions section:

“Nothing in this article shall permit the prosecution of a person for any act of providing medical, osteopathic, surgical, mental health, dental, nursing, optometric, healing, wellness, or pharmaceutical care.”

These segments are the only pieces of the legislation that reference any potential prosecution for healthcare professionals. To clarify, the act states that medical professionals who perform abortions will not be prosecuted for terminating a pregnancy, provided the woman requested and consented to the treatment.

HB 13-1554 was put in place specifically in order to create new offenses concerning unlawful termination of a pregnancy. Without the above-mentioned additions, the bill would ban abortions by criminalizing the professionals who perform them. Medical professionals are not exempt from prosecution if a woman dies during the procedure. The legislation solely exempts healthcare professionals from charges regarding taking the life of a fetus when performing a legal abortion. Therefore, the claim that HB 13-1154 “eliminates criminal liabilities for abortionists who kill women during an abortion” is entirely false.

As little as a $2000 Fine

The final claim to be addressed is that “drunk drivers like the one who is responsible for Brady’s death could have as little as a $2,000 fine.” The statement is derived from HB 13-1154, section “18.3.5-108. Aggravated vehicular unlawful termination of pregnancy.” Under this section, the bill defines “Aggravated vehicular unlawful termination of pregnancy” as driving while under the influence of drugs or alcohol and causing the unlawful death of an unborn child.

This offense is defined as a class 4 felony under the same section. By Colorado law, a class 4 felony is punishable by a minimum of two years in prison and a fine of $2,000 to $500,000.

A series of crimes fall under class 4 felonies in Colorado, from sexual assault to second degree arson to aggravated motor vehicle theft. On top of that, vehicular homicide – when a person recklessly operates or drives a motor vehicle and this conduct is the proximate cause of the death of another person – is defined as a class 4 felony as well. Therefore under current law, the crime is classified the same whether the fatality in a drunk driving accident is a fetus, an adult, or anywhere in between.

It should also be noted that the drunk driver who took the life of Surovik’s unborn child was sentenced to 20 years in prison, and took his own life shortly after the sentencing. The statement is deceptive through implying that the driver received little to no punishment.

The Personhood USA statement “drunk drivers like the one who is responsible for Brady’s death could have as little as a $2,000 fine,” is false.

Summary

The statement as a whole deceives by appealing to the emotions of the reader, subsequently clouding interpretations of the argument. It is entirely false for the website to state that HB 13-1154, the Crimes against Pregnant Women Act, “eliminates criminal liabilities for abortionists who kill women during an abortion” as well as that drunk drivers in similar situations could have “as little as a $2000 fine.” The referenced legislation solely exempts medical professionals from criminal prosecution resulting from the legal termination of a consenting woman’s pregnancy. Claiming that there would be “as little as a $2000 fine” for similar situations is only half of the story. At least two years imprisonment is also required for class 4 felonies, a category which also encompasses a series of other crimes that may be more appropriately dealt with through smaller sentences.

Overall, the claim on Personhood USA’s page about Amendment 67 is deceptive and false.

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Gardner at odds with scientific consensus on Ebola travel ban

Anonymous — Sun, 02 Nov 2014 06:00:00 +0000

Gardner at odds with scientific consensus on Ebola travel ban Anonymous (not verified) Sun, 11/02/2014 - 00:00

In his campaign to unseat Senator Mark Udall, Republican challenger Cory Gardner has called for a travel ban from the West African countries hit hardest by the recent Ebola outbreak. In doing so, he’s ignoring a strong consensus among public health experts on how best to deal with outbreaks of this kind.

An outbreak distribution map shows the extent of the Ebola outbreak in Guinea, Sierra Leone, and Liberia. (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention)

A press release on the congressman’s website quotes him as saying, “A travel ban would help contain the virus and prevent it from being introduced in new places, as we’ve already seen happen in the United States.”

However, several studies on the subject indicate that this strategy would be ineffective, and potentially counterproductive.

“For every complex problem, there’s a solution that’s quick, simple, and wrong,” wrote Tom Frieden, Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, in an op-ed for FoxNews.com. “A travel ban is not the right answer.”

Frieden summarizes the current consensus among public health experts in the piece, arguing that a travel ban would hinder U.S. health officials’ ability to track and monitor potentially infected individuals, and hurt efforts to stop the virus’ spread at its source in Guinea, Sierra Leone, and Liberia. Instead, the C.D.C. has instituted a screening process for incoming travelers from the region, allowing health officials to identify, track, monitor, and, in some cases, isolate at-risk individuals.

Dr. Joseph Amon, an epidemiologist and Director of the Health and Human Rights Division at Human Rights Watch, agrees with the C.D.C.’s current strategy.

“A travel ban is not an effective approach,” he said in an interview with CU News Corps. “There is a clear scientific consensus on the issue of travel restrictions for Ebola.”

Amon was the lead author of a 2008 study on travel restrictions implemented by more than 60 countries in the wake of the HIV/AIDS epidemic. HIV is a useful comparison because, like Ebola, it is not airborne and spreads primarily through bodily fluids.

The researchers found that travel restrictions did not protect public health, and negatively impacted HIV prevention and treatment efforts. “Governments should repeal these laws and policies, and instead devote legislative attention and national resources to comprehensive HIV prevention, care, and treatment programmes serving citizens and non-citizens alike,” they recommended.

Even before Amon’s study, a 1989 review concluded, “The rapidity and extent of HIV spread in any country is primarily determined not by HIV-infected travellers but by the risk-producing activities of its citizens, regardless of whether HIV is introduced by foreign travellers or returning nationals.” The authors found travel restrictions to be “inherently, and often by design, ineffective, impractical, costly, harmful, and may be discriminatory.”

“Banning everyone who has been in a country with Ebola is far too broad and indiscriminate,” said Amon. He believes that such travel restrictions could trigger backlashes from other countries, and points out that ebola-free Rwanda is now screening American travelers for the disease. Amon also worries that travel restrictions could prevent American health workers from returning to the U.S., hurting efforts to stop Ebola in West Africa.

“The question for Ebola really isn’t, will travel restrictions prevent people who are infectious from traveling?” said Amon. “It is, what is the cost of restricting all travel from these countries in order to limit the small number of people who may eventually be infectious but who are currently asymptomatic?”

The current best practice for stemming outbreaks of this kind is called “contact-tracing,” and has been credited as the biggest factor in Nigeria and Senegal’s successful campaigns to stop the virus’ spread. Both countries were recently declared Ebola-free by the World Health Organization, yet neither implemented a travel ban. This allowed health officials to track and monitor incoming travelers from Sierra Leone, Guinea, and Liberia. When a case is found, health officials identify individuals that had contact with the infected individual, monitoring, and sometimes isolating, them until they have been asymptomatic for 21 days. The same practice is being used in Dallas, Texas, where 51 people who had contact with Ebola victim Thomas Eric Duncan were recently cleared.

“We know how to stop Ebola: by isolating and treating patients, tracing and monitoring their contacts, and breaking the chains of transmission,” wrote Frieden in his FoxNews.com op-ed.

While Gardner’s intentions may be good, his claim that a travel ban would help contain the virus and prevent it from being introduced in new places is misleading, and in clear contrast with the scientific consensus on the issue.

“It’s as if you were in a burning house, in your room, and you start putting wet towels under the door to keep the smoke from coming in,” World Bank President Jim Kim told reporters earlier this month. “That is not an effective strategy. We’ve got to get back to putting out the fire.”

Outbreak Distribution Map: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

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Gardner’s misleading attack on equal pay illustrates bi-partisan hypocrisy

Anonymous — Fri, 24 Oct 2014 13:06:42 +0000

Gardner’s misleading attack on equal pay illustrates bi-partisan hypocrisy Anonymous (not verified) Fri, 10/24/2014 - 07:06 Lars Gesing

Paying male and female employers the same salary has been a central campaign issue for Democrats up and down the ticket across the country in past years. Sure enough, that discourse also made its appearance in one of the closest Senate races this fall – the contest between Sen. Mark Udall, D-Colo., and his challenger, Rep. Cory Gardner, R-Yuma.

At debates, in TV ads and on social media, Gardner, the GOP and supporting PACs accuse Udall, a co-sponsor of the Paycheck Fairness Act and the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, of hypocrisy.

“You have recently launched a television ad where you talk about your support for equal pay,” Gardner said at a recent Denver Post debate. “I support equal pay. And yet in your office you pay women 86 cents for every dollar you pay a man. Why don’t you live by example in your office?”

And a few days ago, the Colorado GOP tweeted this: “@MarkUdall STILL refuses to pay women on staff as much as men. #COPolitics #COSen”

.@MarkUdall STILL refuses to pay women on staff as much as men. #COPolitics #COSen pic.twitter.com/jciTNsU0KD
— The Colorado GOP (@cologop) 21. Oktober 2014

CU News Corps fact-checked the Gardner and GOP attacks – and found them misleading.

The ad the congressman talked about is a 30-second spot, titled “Succeed.” In it, Sen. Udall says, “… Everyone deserves a fair shot at success – with affordable student loans, equal pay for women in the work force and equal treatment when it comes to what men and women pay for their health care.”

Sen. Udall’s campaign ad, “Succeed.”

Gardner’s campaign staff dug up an analysis done by the conservative-leaning political news websitewatchdog.org, which showed that from October 2012 to September 2013, Udall did in fact pay the 17 full-time women on his staff 86 cents for every dollar his 14 male employers made.

Because those numbers are outdated, CU News Corps did its own analysis of salary data, courtesy of the Congress-oriented non-partisan research organization LegiStorm. You can find our full break-down of the numbers here.

At first glance, the numbers from Oct. 1, 2013, to March, 30, 2014, seem to support Gardner. During that six-month period, Udall employed 20 male and 20 female full-time staffers, and he paid the women only 84 cents for every dollar the men in his Senate office made. In Gardner’s, congressional office, on the other hand, women made $1.09 compared to every dollar paid to men.

But this is where the numbers start to get deceptive and prone to partisan twisting.

The main reason Udall pays women only 84 (formerly 86) cents for every dollar he pays men is that his chief of staff, Mike Sozan, and his deputy – the two biggest assets on Udall’s payroll – are both men. Rep. Gardner’s chief of staff, Natalie Farr, on the other hand, is a woman.

The clue here is this: The Republican calculation doesn’t consider equal pay for equal work – it literally leaves the “equal” part out of the equation.

Gender-specific seniority on the payroll isn’t considered. But the only way to find a completely accurate measure for fair pay would be to compare the wages of a man and a women for the exact same work.

The closest the CU News Corps analysis came to that were the numbers on the paychecks for Udall’s eight full-time regional directors, which mostly only differed by a few hundred dollars.

CU economics professor Jeffrey Zax said Gardner’s 86-cent number is not meaningful and should not be used. But at the same time he hinted at Democratic hypocrisy.

“Democrats in other contexts claim women are underpaid because they make the same calculation across the country.”

Earlier this year the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee pushed the hashtag #GOPpaygap on Twitter.

Despite Democratic hypocrisy: Gardner actively mislead

While Democrats may not like that Republicans now use their own logic against them – Gardner’s statement remains misleading.

His campaign chose not to respond to multiple CU News Corps inquiries. Instead, Republican National Committee spokesperson Raffi Williams defended Gardner and the GOP.

“All Republicans are for equal pay for equal work,” he wrote in an email. “But it’s strange when Mark Udall tries to use one formula for all Colorado women but then cries foul when the same math is used for his own female employees. Which is it, Mark?”

Williams pointed to a tweet Udall’s team had sent out earlier this year: “#CO women earn only $0.79 for every $1 their male counterparts make. We need to bridge this gap & pass #PaycheckFairness Act ASAP. #EqualPay.”

#CO women earn only $0.79 for every $1 their male counterparts make. We need to bridge this gap & pass #PaycheckFairness Act ASAP. #EqualPay
— Mark Udall (@MarkUdall) April 7, 2014

Chris Harris, Udall’s campaign spokesperson, didn’t want to hear any of it.

“Mark knows that when women do well, Colorado does well,” Harris wrote in an email. “[The Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act and the Paycheck Fairness Act] ensure that when women are being unfairly discriminated against at the office, they have the tools and information necessary to make things right.”

At The Denver Post debate, Udall retorted Gardner’s attack.

“I’m reminded what Mark Twain famously said about statistics many years ago,” the senator said. “Let me make it very clear: I pay the women on my team the same for equal work.”

That Mark Twain? It’s this one: “There are lies, damned lies and statistics.”

As it turns out, Twain’s logic applies to the equally misleading statements of both candidates.

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VoteNo67 falsely claims that Amendment 67 would ban all abortions

Anonymous — Thu, 23 Oct 2014 13:06:42 +0000

VoteNo67 falsely claims that Amendment 67 would ban all abortions Anonymous (not verified) Thu, 10/23/2014 - 07:06 Peri Duncan

The personhood issue in the upcoming midterms in Colorado is Amendment 67, also referred to as the “Brady Amendment.” This year it is centered on the premise that pregnant mothers and their unborn children need greater protection from violence than Colorado law already provides.

The VoteNo67 campaign, backed by Planned Parenthood Votes, is the main opponent of the legislation. The group’s website promotes the claim:

“Amendment 67 would ban all abortions in Colorado, including in cases of rape, incest and when the health of the mother is in danger.”

CU News Corps finds this claim to be false for the following reasons:

Amendment 67 does not specifically reference abortion at all, let alone specific situations; and
Although Amendment 67 may be further interpreted to impact abortion laws, it would not immediately ban abortion if passed.

Wording

Amendment 67 is worded on the ballot as follows:

“Shall there be an amendment to the Colorado constitution protecting pregnant women and unborn children by defining ‘person’ and ‘child’ in the Colorado criminal code and the Colorado Wrongful Death Act to include unborn human beings?”

There is no mention of the word “abortion” in the amendment, let alone any reference to rape, incest, or situations where the health of the mother is in danger. It also specifies that it will be redefined in the Colorado criminal code and the Colorado wrongful death act, not necessarily the entire Colorado constitution.

The main goal of the amendment, according to the Voice for Brady campaign, is to protect pregnant mothers and their unborn children. However, its main proponents are Personhood USA and Colorado Right to Life, two pro-life organizations with the end goals of banning all abortions, although phrased in various ways.

The risk of Amendment 67 banning abortion in Colorado is in further court interpretation.

Interpretation

If Amendment 67 passed, it could not immediately ban abortion. Several prominent pro-life Republicans such as GOP gubernatorial candidate Bob Beauprez oppose the bill because they say the vague phrasing makes the repercussions unclear.

So what would Amendment 67 do right away?

The immediate impact of Amendment 67 would be exactly as it states: redefining “person” and “child” in the Colorado criminal code and the Colorado Wrongful Death Act to include unborn human beings, under the premise of protecting pregnant women and their unborn children from “wrongful death.”

What would need to happen to ban abortion in Colorado?

Courts, including the U.S. Supreme Court, would have to interpret Amendment 67 and possibly overturn standing decisions. Abortion remains a legal right for all U.S. citizens. A federal ban on abortion would require overturning the Supreme Court’s 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling.

Even the most zealous organizations in favor of banning abortion do not believe that a state personhood measure alone has the potential to ban abortion.

National Pro-Life Alliance, a far-right organization, claims that passing a federal Life at Conception Act is the most effective way to overturn Roe v. Wade. Colorado U.S. Senate candidate and U.S. Rep. Cory Gardner (R-Yuma) co-sponsors the current federal Life at Conception Act. Because such pro-life organizations believe state personhood measures do not go far enough, it follows that their goal would not be reached with solely the passing of legislation such as Amendment 67.

Even if a case challenging Roe v. Wade was brought up to the Supreme Court based on Amendment 67, it would take a significant amount of time and other information before anything became of it.

A personhood amendment added to a state constitution might raise the likelihood that a case challenging Roe v. Wade could be brought to the Supreme Court. However, a ban would come from a court case and not a state constitutional amendment.

The legislation makes no reference to the word “abortion” at all, or any circumstances concerning an abortion. Due to these factors, VoteNo67’s statement that Amendment 67 would ban all abortions including cases of rape, incest, and when the health of the mother is in danger, is false.

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Prop 105 misleads on health, safety of genetically modified food

Anonymous — Tue, 14 Oct 2014 13:06:42 +0000

Prop 105 misleads on health, safety of genetically modified food Anonymous (not verified) Tue, 10/14/2014 - 07:06 Paul McDivitt

While both supporters and opponents of Proposition 105 have centered their campaigns on the question of whether labeling genetically modified food would impose unnecessary burdens on consumers, regulators, and farmers, little attention has been paid to the motivation behind the measure.

Prop 105 misleads on health, safety of genetically modified food

CU News Corps analyzed the “Colorado Right to Know Act” — which would become law if Proposition 105 is approved by voters next month — and found several claims that are at odds with the scientific consensus on the health, safety, and environmental impact of genetically modified food.

The act states, “Labeling of genetically modified food is intended to provide consumers with the opportunity to make an informed choice of the products they consume and to protect the public’s health, safety and welfare.”

This statement implies that genetically modified foods pose a threat to the public’s health, but the America n Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Medical Association, and the World Health Organization have all concluded that genetically modified foods are safe to eat. In fact, the National Academies of Sciences found, “No adverse health effects attributed to genetic engineering have been documented in the human population.”

Pamela Ronald, a geneticist at the University of California-Davis, agrees that the act does not accurately portray the state of the science on genetic engineering.

“Virtually everything we eat has been genetically altered using some method,” she said in an interview with CU News Corps. “National academies around the world have concluded that the process of genetic engineering produces no unique risks compared to conventional methods of modification and that the crops currently on the market are safe to eat.”

Genetic engineering is similar to selective breeding, a conventional method of genetic alteration in which plants with desirable traits, such as sweetness or disease resistance, are selectively bred so that their offspring are more likely to possess such traits. This method has been used by humans for centuries, and is responsible for much of the agricultural abundance we enjoy today.

According to Ronald, there are two key differences between selective breeding and genetic engineering. First, selective breeding mixes large sets of genes while genetic engineering typically inserts one or a few selected genes. Second, while selective breeding only allows gene transfer between closely related species, genetic engineering can introduce any gene into a plant. These two differences are advantageous because they allow for increased precision and variety.

The act also claims, “The long term health, safety and environmental consequences of growing and consuming genetically modified food are not yet fully researched and are not yet well understood by science.”

While the technology is still relatively new, it is not true that genetically engineered foods have not been thoroughly researched. A review by Italian researchers found 1,783 studies published between 2002 and 2012 on genetically modified foods, concluding, “The scientific research conducted so far has not detected any significant hazards directly connected with the use of GE crops.”

Another statement in the act reads, “U.S. federal law does not provide for the regulation on the safety and labeling of genetically modified food.”

In fact, three separate federal agencies regulate genetically modified foods on a case-by-case basis before they are approved for human consumption.

While the state of the science is clear on the health and safety of genetically modified food, the picture is a bit murkier when it comes to the environmental effects. The implementation of herbicide-resistant corn has resulted in the increased use of herbicides, which environmentalists argue is speeding up the development of herbicide-resistant “superweeds.” But other genetically modified foods have yielded environmental benefits.

For example, much of the corn and cotton grown in the United States has been genetically modified to include a gene from the bacterium Bacillus thuringiensis, or Bt, that produces a protein that acts as a natural insecticide.

“The benefits of many of these crops are significant,” said Ronald. “The planting of Bt crops has reduced the use of sprayed insecticides tenfold over the last 15 years.”

These three statements help to paint a clearer picture of the motivation behind efforts to label genetically modified food. Reports claiming that these foods are unhealthy, unsafe, and bad for the environment have been widely circulated among the American public, but are not backed by thorough scientific analysis.

While there is still much to learn about genetically modified food, the Colorado Right to Know Act clearly distorts current scientific understanding of their health, safety, and environmental impacts.

Photo used with permission from Chris Goodwin at desrowvisuals.com

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Voice for Brady ad deceives and misstates facts

Anonymous — Fri, 10 Oct 2014 13:06:42 +0000

Voice for Brady ad deceives and misstates facts Anonymous (not verified) Fri, 10/10/2014 - 07:06 Peri Duncan

Amendment 67, another personhood issue on the Colorado ballot (Coloradans rejected two similar amendments in 2008 and 2010), continues to produce many deceptive and emotionally charged claims on both sides.

The “Voice for Brady” campaign is the primary supporter of the proposed amendment to the state constitution and the group behind the advertising campaign for its passage. It counts on support from Personhood USA, a pro-life organization, which is also backing a similar measure in North Dakota. Its website hosts pages for Amendment 67 and North Dakota’s Measure 1.

Much of the imagery and wording on the Personhood USA page about Amendment 67 mirrors the “A Voice for Brady” website, including the following statement:

“Because Colorado law doesn’t recognize Brady as a person, there was no prosecution for his tragic death.”

CU News Corps finds this claim to be deceptive for the following reasons:

It uses a trusted propaganda technique, “appeal to emotion:”
- The statement references Heather Surovik’s unborn child in a very personal and emotional way, as “Brady,” his would-be first name.
- The statement refers to the accident as “his tragic death,” an emotionally charged statement.

While these emotional appeals may distort the truth, News Corps found the following piece to be plain wrong:

The statement claims there was “no prosecution” for the death of the unborn child.

Background

Early in the 2012 legislative session, before the loss of Heather Surovik’s unborn child, the Colorado General Assembly attempted and failed to pass HB 12-1130, “Concerning offenses against an unborn child,” which introduced a series of “unlawful termination of a pregnancy” offenses as Class 3 felonies. Later that year, Surovik’s pregnancy ended at eight months when she was involved in an automobile crash.

In reaction to that crash, the legislature in 2013 passed HB 13-1154, “Concerning Crimes Against Pregnant Women,” introducing new offenses similar to those in HB12-1130. The law contained more details and harsher sentencing than its 2012 version, classifying some cases of unlawful termination of a pregnancy as Class 1 and Class 2 felonies. It also added mandatory sentencing for violent crimes, including first- and second-degree unlawful termination of a pregnancy.

In 2014 Colorado passed HB 14-1388, in order to “allow a woman to sue a person who ‘intentionally, knowingly or recklessly’ causes an ‘unlawful termination of her pregnancy’ for her own economic damages, non-economic damages and exemplary damages.”

These laws do not ban abortion, nor do they have the potential to. They also do not give personhood to an unborn child. But they do answer the call for legislation that addresses the loss of a fetus.

Personhood USA opposed all of these bills, and the Brady Campaign says the legislation doesn’t go far enough.

Appeal to Emotion

The tactic of appealing to readers’ emotions manipulates certain responses in place of using valid or compelling arguments. Although some valid arguments may include emotional aspects, emotions can and will cloud the logic of an argument for the reader.

“This is done instead of appealing directly to the values and policies being debated: it is also usually a red herring, since the personhood amendment would do a lot more than just change the circumstances of this specific case,” said Kelsey Cody, a graduate student and writing instructor at the University of Colorado at Boulder.

Heather Surovik was eight months pregnant at the time of the car crash. Referencing Heather Surovik’s unborn child by his given name, Personhood USA and “A Voice for Brady” appeal to the emotions of the reader. This is a significant problem because it is more difficult for readers to detach themselves and logically assess the consequences of an issue when their emotions are being manipulated, Cody said.

“His Tragic Death”

Calling the accident “his tragic death,” the statement once again uses the fallacy of appealing to readers’ emotions.

The first key piece of the phrase “his tragic death” is the word “his.” Using gendered pronouns in reference to the unborn child, despite that the child would have been born a male, is furthering the personification of the fetus and equating the life of the unborn to that of a fully developed human. The reader is likely unaware that this appeal to emotion is happening when reading this statement, as it is presented as fact.

The second piece of the phrase, the words “tragic death,” already puts the incident in a certain light in the mind of the reader. Although situations such as this one are often referred to as tragedies, Amendment 67 is not about the tragedy itself, it is about the protection of pregnant mothers and their unborn children. The use of the word “tragic” plays on the readers’ emotions.

“No prosecution”

The statement claims there was “no prosecution” for the death of the unborn child.

Gary Sheats, the drunk driver who hit Surovik on July 5, 2012, had a blood alcohol level of .292 at the time of the accident. This was his fifth DUI charge, and he was driving on a revoked license. He also suffered from stage-IV Lymphoma, and his father said Sheats only had a short time left to live.

The DUI charge itself is only a misdemeanor, warranting between two months and a year in jail. Stan Garnett, the Boulder County district attorney, charged Sheats with multiple felony charges of vehicular assault involving DUI, as well as leaving the scene of an accident that caused serious bodily injury.

Sheats pleaded guilty in February 2013 to two counts of felony vehicular assault and DUI, facing up to 20 years in prison.

On March 13, 2013, the Denver Officer of the Medical Examiner confirmed that a man found dead the day before in a Denver Motel 6 was Gary Sheats, the drunk driver who caused the death of Heather Surovik’s unborn child.

For these reasons, the statement that there was “no prosecution” is wrong.

“There was a prosecution, and it was quite vigorous. Mr. Sheats was found guilty and would have been sentenced to 20 years in prison. Though it is true that there was no prosecution specifically related to the loss of the fetus, the lack of a ‘personhood’ designation was not the reason, as the statement suggests. Rather, it was due to a gap in the law that has been filled by recent statute,” Garnett said. The statutes he refers to are the above-mentioned Colorado House bills.

To clarify, Sheats, who was dying of cancer, was not prosecuted specifically for the part he played in the death of Surovik’s unborn child. He was prosecuted for multiple counts of vehicular assault involving DUI as well as leaving the crime scene and sentenced to 20 years in prison. Shortly after he pleaded guilty to these charges, Sheats took his own life. Despite the fact that the statement may specifically refer to the lack of prosecution for the loss of the fetus, it is plain wrong because of its finality and lack of detail on the actual conclusion of the case against Sheats.

In summary, the phrasing of this statement from the “Voice for Brady” and Personhood campaigns hardly represents the truth. Although seemingly harmless, referring to the unborn child as “Brady,” along with labeling his death as “tragic” is deceptive through appealing to the emotion of the reader and can severely inhibit his or her understanding of the statement. There is also no clarification or any mention at all of what happened to the drunk driver, aside from the phrase, “no prosecution.” Without further clarification to the reader that the statement references specifically the loss of the fetus, the phrase “no prosecution” is plain wrong.

**Note: Previously, CU News Corps fact-checked a Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee’s advertisement against Cory Gardner. In order to continue balanced coverage, this fact check addresses the opposite side of the issue.**

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Hickenlooper campaign polishes business-creation rankings

Anonymous — Fri, 10 Oct 2014 13:06:42 +0000

Hickenlooper campaign polishes business-creation rankings Anonymous (not verified) Fri, 10/10/2014 - 07:06 Lars Gesing

Colorado incumbent Gov. John Hickenlooper insists his leadership has helped Colorado’s economy bounce back from the latest recession that hit the state hard.

On the campaign trail this fall, Hickenlooper faces a fierce challenge from former Republican Rep. Bob Beauprez, who continuously questions the governor’s policy contributions to the state’s recovery. Beauprez reiterated his concerns during a debate at The Denver Post last week.

“There are still many people in Colorado wondering where this recovery is for them,” the Republican candidate said.

On its website, Hickenlooper’s campaign staff does its own “fact check” of the Beauprez camp attacks. It concludes, “False Claim: Beauprez attacks Gov. Hickenlooper’s leadership on the economy.” As proof, team Hickenlooper brings up an array of economic rankings, among them this one: “Colorado is now ranked [the] second-best state in the country to start a business.”

CU News Corps took a close look at that specific statement and found that it polishes the ranking and lacks crucial context.

Innovation and entrepreneurship only part of the puzzle

The study the governor and his staff cite is the fourth annual Enterprising States report, published by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation. The organization is an arm of the conservative-leaning U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which – contrary to popular belief – is not an agency of the government, but is in fact the largest and most active lobbying group in the country.

The report lists Colorado at number two for innovation and entrepreneurship, second only to Maryland. The two measures take into account half a dozen determinants.

Science, technology, engineering and math occupation concentration
STEM job growth
High-technology businesses as a share of all businesses
Academic research and development activity
Birthrate of business establishments
Growth in full- and part-time self-employment

That ranking is certainly good news for Colorado entrepreneurs and the sitting governor. But it is also only one part of the Chamber of Commerce Foundation’s evaluation and subsequently only one factor that plays into the decision of whether or not to start a business in Colorado.

The same report ranks the state fifth in performance, seventh in business climate and 10th in both the “talent pipeline” and “infrastructure” categories. These sections also provide important and necessary context for 1) a new business to consider before launching and 2) for voters to keep in mind when the governor talks about Colorado’s number-two ranking in business creation.

The Hickenlooper campaign did not return multiple calls and emails, and spokesperson Eddie Stern’s mailbox was full on Friday when NewsCorps tried to reach him one last time.

Although the state’s ranking specifically for innovation and entrepreneurship hasn’t changed from 2013 to 2014, the report notes a trend that is also necessary for context. In the last 12 months, innovation and entrepreneurship have nationally decreased 7.5 percent on average. In Colorado the decrease wasn’t quite as bad, but with 1.7 percent it dropped nonetheless.

The report’s authors write, “Colorado is a leader in measures of technology and entrepreneurship, offering a strong support network for innovators.” They specifically cite the Colorado Innovation Network, which the state’s economic development office launched in 2011 (during Hickenlooper’s first term) to rally industry support for the creation of a startup-friendly business environment.

Venture-capital investors hesitant

In August, COIN published its 2014 annual Innovation Report. It found:

“Colorado has a technically trained workforce and is developing new talent in the fields of science, technology, engineering and math,
Colorado has been successful in undertaking new research into new findings with commercial potential,
Colorado ranks among the highest of its peer-group states (Arizona, California, Georgia, Illinois, Massachusetts, New York, North Carolina, Texas and Utah) for startup creation and job creation, and
Colorado companies are doing well at obtaining federal grants, yet they need to improve their ability to attract interest from the venture capital community.”

Beauprez is trumpeting up and down the campaign trail that access to venture capital is a problem for Colorado’s economy.

Venture capital is money provided to small, high-potential startups early in the creation process. Potential investors hesitating is a central component of Beauprez’s criticism of Hickenlooper’s economic leadership, which the governor’s staff is trying to disprove with its own fact check.

Beauprez’s website states, “Companies, like startups, clearly want to locate in Colorado. But access to venture capital has decreased.” It also quotes a Denver Business Journal story, which reads, “The state comes out on top for startup and job creation, but venture capital investment in the state has been declining steady since 2012, causing the state to lag behind its peers. Nationally, VC has been growing.”

Kauffman Index: Colorado 5th in new businesses started

For more context on Colorado’s position in the national race for business creation, it is worth considering other reports, too, such as the Kauffman Index of Entrepreneurial Activity.

The nonpartisan Kauffman Foundation, a Kansas City-based group working to enhance entrepreneurial activity across the U.S., looks at Census data to determine the number of new business owners in their first month of significant entrepreneurial activity.

The index ranked Colorado fifth in the nation, with 380 per 100,000 adults who started a new business here each month. Montana led the pack with 610 new entrepreneurs per 100,000 adults. The average across the U.S. was 280.

The Kauffman Index serves as a good numeric indicator of how many prospective entrepreneurs each state can convince to actually start a business within its borders. Therefore the report should not be left out of the equation when making statements about emerging-business rankings.

To conclude, Colorado is certainly among the handful of states in the country that are leaders in attracting new businesses. But the Hickenlooper campaign’s sweeping statement doesn’t stand the test of more careful examination. It is overly broad and not representative. Rather, the governor’s staff grabbed the best-looking number they could find and stripped off crucial context.

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Colorado Republicans misrepresent the science on climate change

Anonymous — Tue, 07 Oct 2014 13:06:42 +0000

Colorado Republicans misrepresent the science on climate change Anonymous (not verified) Tue, 10/07/2014 - 07:06 Paul McDivitt

In recent debates hosted by theDenver Post, candidates were asked a series of yes-or-no questions by the moderators. One of those questions was, “Do you believe humans are contributing significantly to climate change?” Republican gubernatorial challenger Bob Beauprez and sixth district incumbent Republican Congressman Mike Coffman both answered “no,” putting them in clear contrast with the established scientific consensus on the issue.

The coal-fired Craig Station power plant in northwest Colorado is the state's largest single source of CO2 emissions. (Wikimedia Commons)

Both tried to clarify their answer later in the debate.

“Are we going to end or alter the path that Earth’s evolution is going to take? I don’t think so,” said Beauprez.

“On the climate change issue, I just think the science is not quite settled,” said Coffman.

While Beauprez’s campaign website does not mention climate change, Coffman’s does. It states, “The role that carbon emissions, from human activity, have on climate change is still a subject of debate.”

In an interview with CU News Corps, Kevin Trenberth, a climate scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research, called this statement “emphatically wrong.”

“The human component is so far outside natural variability in many ways,” Trenberth said. “The estimates suggest that any natural variability has, if anything, worked against the warming.”

The scientific consensus that humans are contributing significantly to climate change is well established, and has been for quite some time. In 2006, the American Association for the Advancement of Science concluded, “The scientific evidence is clear: global climate change caused by human activities is occurring now, and it is a growing threat to society.” In 2012, the American Meteorological Society summarized, “It is clear from extensive scientific evidence that the dominant cause of the rapid change in climate of the past half century is human-induced increases in the amount of atmospheric greenhouse gases.” In fact, nearly 200 science organizations from around the world hold the position that human activity is causing climate change.

Furthermore, a 2010 study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences found that 97 to 98 percent of the climate researchers most actively publishing in the field support the basic tenets of human-caused climate change. In another study, researchers examined nearly 12,000 studies on climate change between 1991 and 2011 and found that, among those expressing a position, 97.1 percent endorsed the consensus position that humans are causing climate change.

While uncertainties remain regarding exactly how climate change will manifest itself in the coming decades and centuries, there is virtually no debate within the scientific community on whether human activity is the dominant cause of recent warming, putting Bob Beauprez and Mike Coffman’s debate comments firmly out-of-step with the scientific literature on the subject.

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