The arithmetic for one report
Police Capture Thief Who Stole, Then Destroyed Bones Belonging To Saint Nicholas From Iconic Church
85Few flagged expressions
What was read
480 words in the outlet's own voice, plus 15 in the headline. 3% of the text is in quotes. 13 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): Act Of Terror
. Since method 3.1.0 their words count as the outlet's own.
Words found
- In the headline:
iconic
1 point Puffery
Belonging To Saint Nicholas From Iconic Churchdestroyed
1 point Raises the temperature
Capture Thief Who Stole, Then Destroyed Bones Belonging To Saint Nicholas From - Word choice:
purportedly
2 points Expression of doubt
L’Est Republicain reported. The suspect purportedly claimed he spontaneously smashed the protectiveclaimed
1 point Expression of doubt
Republicain reported. The suspect purportedly claimed he spontaneously smashed the protective case
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 | 480 | 6.3 | 15.0 (words 1 to 200) | 10.6 | 0 to 40 | 73 |
| Temperature | 0 | 480 | 0.0 | 0.0 (words 1 to 200) | 0.0 | 0 to 40 | 100 |
| Flagged attribution phrases | 0 | 480 | 0.0 | 0.0 (words 1 to 200) | 0.0 | 0 to 20 | 100 |
| Headline wording | 2 | 25 | 80.0 | headline only | 80.0 | 0 to 240 | 67 |
Densest stretch: Word choice, words 1 to 200 of 480, with purportedly
, claimed
.
Shown, not scored: the headline's rate minus the rate of the story's first 80 words is 133.3 points per 1,000 words. Experimental: 0 of 5 names and figures in the headline also appear in the text read.
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 73 + 10)0.4 × (Temperature 100 + 10)0.3 × (Flagged attribution phrases 100 + 10)0.2 × (Headline wording 67 + 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 | 0 |
|---|---|
| Unnamed sources | 0 |
| 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) | 10 |
| 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: 03b1882da7ffe1e4. 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.