The arithmetic for one report
JD Vance’s bad week gets worse
87Few flagged expressions
What was read
621 words in the outlet's own voice, plus 6 in the headline. 3% of the text is in quotes. 2 attribution markers (such as "said" or "according to") found.
Words found
- Word choice:
actually
1 point Editorializing
system to confirm when you’re actually talking to a family member and - Raises the temperature:
very
1 point Raises the temperature
that it’s hard to run very far when the president gets hit - Attribution phrases:
reportedly
2 points Unnamed source
contenders, like Rubio (who is reportedly eyeing an exit from the administration
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 | 1 | 621 | 1.6 | 5.0 (words 401 to 600) | 3.3 | 0 to 40 | 92 |
| Temperature | 1 | 621 | 1.6 | 5.0 (words 1 to 200) | 3.3 | 0 to 40 | 92 |
| Flagged attribution phrases | 2 | 621 | 3.2 | 10.0 (words 301 to 500) | 6.6 | 0 to 20 | 67 |
| Headline wording | 0 | 25 | 0.0 | headline only | 0.0 | 0 to 240 | 100 |
Densest stretch: Word choice, words 401 to 600 of 621, with actually
; Temperature, words 1 to 200 of 621, with very
; Flagged attribution phrases, words 301 to 500 of 621, with reportedly
.
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 92 + 10)0.4 × (Temperature 92 + 10)0.3 × (Flagged attribution phrases 67 + 10)0.2 × (Headline wording 100 + 10)0.1 − 10 = 87. 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: Flagged attribution phrases.
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 | 0 |
|---|---|
| Unnamed sources | 1 (100% 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) | 6 |
| 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: ce01a4d0e045b20f. 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.