The Washington Post fact checker wrote in an update this afternoon that he has retracted the “Four Pinocchios” rating he gave to Trent Franks’s statement that the “incidence of rape resulting in pregnancy are very low.” The Post‘s Glenn Kessler writes (emphasis added):
Update, June 7: Ben Carnes, communications director for Franks, says that Franks mispoke and intended to refer to the number of abortions due to rape. We had originally awarded Four Pinocchios for Franks’ statement, but in light of the clarification, we have removed the rating from this column. We don’t try to play gotcha here, and might not have written a column if Carnes had responded to our initial inquiry. In any case, given that some readers interpreted Franks’s statement differently, it no longer appears appropriate to have a rating.
The unjustified rating was due in part to the ambiguity of the word “incidence.” As Dave Weigel and Jonathan Chait pointed out, some reporters wrongly assumed it means “rate.”
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