The arithmetic for one report
What a blue wave could actually do
83Moderate density of flagged expressions
What was read
627 words in the outlet's own voice, plus 7 in the headline. 4% of the text is in quotes. 2 attribution markers (such as "said" or "according to") found.
Scare quotes (a phrase of one to three words in quotation marks with no speaker in the same sentence): nauseously optimistic
, blue wave
, change his ways.
. Since method 3.1.0 their words count as the outlet's own.
Words found
- In the headline:
actually
1 point Editorializing
What a blue wave could actually do - Word choice:
far-left
3 points Contentious label
a sort of firewall against far-left activists. Unsurprisingly, given those stakes, turnout - Raises the temperature:
very
1 point Raises the temperature
have full results, especially in very close races. And it will takevery
1 point Raises the temperature
limits to what even a very large blue wave can achieve. Voters
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 | 627 | 4.8 | 15.0 (words 1 to 200) | 9.9 | 0 to 40 | 75 |
| Temperature | 2 | 627 | 3.2 | 10.0 (words 151 to 350) | 6.6 | 0 to 40 | 84 |
| Flagged attribution phrases | 0 | 627 | 0.0 | 0.0 (words 1 to 200) | 0.0 | 0 to 20 | 100 |
| Headline wording | 1 | 25 | 40.0 | headline only | 40.0 | 0 to 240 | 83 |
Densest stretch: Word choice, words 1 to 200 of 627, with far-left
; Temperature, words 151 to 350 of 627, with very
, very
.
Shown, not scored: the headline's rate minus the rate of the story's first 80 words is 142.9 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 75 + 10)0.4 × (Temperature 84 + 10)0.3 × (Flagged attribution phrases 100 + 10)0.2 × (Headline wording 83 + 10)0.1 − 10 = 83. 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 | 1 (Leader Chuck Schumer) |
|---|---|
| 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) | 5 |
| Data shown (a table or chart) | yes |
| 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: 6ccb0ba7188d382a. 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.