The arithmetic for one report
Even after the midterm rout of Trumpism, the world struggles to trust America
85Few flagged expressions Wire copy: shown here but left out of the outlet's own score.
What was read
895 words in the outlet's own voice, plus 13 in the headline. 28% of the text is in quotes, with 3 listed words inside quotes. 16 attribution markers (such as "said" or "according to") found.
Listed words inside quotes (not scored; quoting is reporting, but which quotes to use is an editorial choice): actually
, very
, very
.
Scare quotes (a phrase of one to three words in quotation marks with no speaker in the same sentence): wow
. Since method 3.1.0 their words count as the outlet's own.
Words found
- Word choice:
regime
3 points Contentious label
can reverse Trump's costly tariff regime as the incoming majority has promised - Raises the temperature:
stunning
1 point Raises the temperature
Trump-weary world awakening to the stunning news that Americans had sharply rejectedenormous
1 point Raises the temperature
reality that Trump still retains enormous powers. German Chancellor Friedrich Merz saidstunning
1 point Raises the temperature
wrote in Think China. The stunning midterm elections were not enough to
Layer scores
Rates are counted points per 1,000 words of the story's own text. For a story longer than 200 words, the rate used is the average of the whole-story rate and the rate in its densest 200-word stretch, so neutral filler cannot dilute a loaded passage away. Score = 100 × (loaded end − rate used) ÷ loaded end, kept between 0 and 100. Headline words count only in the headline layer.
| Layer | Points | Words | Whole-story rate | Densest 200 words | Rate used | Scale | Score |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Word choice | 3 | 895 | 3.4 | 15.0 (words 301 to 500) | 9.2 | 0 to 40 | 77 |
| Temperature | 3 | 895 | 3.4 | 10.0 (words 151 to 350) | 6.7 | 0 to 40 | 83 |
| Flagged attribution phrases | 0 | 895 | 0.0 | 0.0 (words 1 to 200) | 0.0 | 0 to 20 | 100 |
| Headline wording | 0 | 25 | 0.0 | headline only | 0.0 | 0 to 240 | 100 |
Densest stretch: Word choice, words 301 to 500 of 895, with regime
; Temperature, words 151 to 350 of 895, with enormous
, stunning
.
Shown, not scored: the headline's rate minus the rate of the story's first 80 words is 0.0 points per 1,000 words.
Overall
Weighted geometric mean of the layers that are established, with 10 added to each layer first and taken away at the end: (Word choice 77 + 10)0.4 × (Temperature 83 + 10)0.3 × (Flagged attribution phrases 100 + 10)0.2 × (Headline wording 100 + 10)0.1 − 10 = 85. Adding 10 means one layer at 0 lowers the total steeply without collapsing it. A weak layer pulls the total down.
Lowered the score most: Word choice.
Name-swap test: with party, politician and institution names swapped, this report's score moves by 0.0 points.
What a reader could check
| People named as sources | 5 (Chancellor Friedrich Merz, Ian Bremmer, Editor Jen Gerson, Michael Lu, Yoshinobu Tsutsui) |
|---|---|
| Unnamed sources | 0 (0% of all sources found) |
| Links to primary records (government, court, filings, PDFs) | 0 |
| Documents cited in the text (a report, bill, ruling, filing) | 0 |
| Checkable specifics (numbers and dates) | 13 |
| Data shown (a table or chart) | no |
| Correction or clarification noted | no |
What a reader could check, counted by published patterns. Shown beside the score, never part of it. How each count works
Checked against the official record
No vote count or bill number found in the text read.
Record of this measurement
Method 3.1.0, word-list fingerprint 807a17189402a416, read by text extractor version 4. Fingerprint of the text read: 1de7b718d4a707cf. Internet Archive copy nearest the time it was read. The text read was not kept (read before method 3.1.0, or from the feed only), so a later rule change can be applied only while the report is still in the outlet's feed.