The arithmetic for one report
Dunleavy calls Alaska voting system ‘very confusing’ as razor-thin Senate race frozen in time
81Moderate density of flagged expressions
What was read
409 words in the outlet's own voice, plus 14 in the headline. 41% of the text is in quotes, with 3 listed words inside quotes. 6 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): very confusing
, very confusing,
, No
, Decoy Dan
, DISGUSTED
, DECOY DAN
, DECOY DAN
. Since method 3.1.0 their words count as the outlet's own.
Words found
- In the headline:
very
attributed to a speaker, not counted Raises the temperature
Dunleavy calls Alaska voting system very confusing as razor-thin Senate race frozen - Word choice:
admits
2 points Loaded word for "said"
Republican Alaska Gov. Mike Dunleavy admits his own state's voting system isadmitted
2 points Loaded word for "said"
Wednesday, Nov. 18, when he admitted , acknowledging that ALASKA, MISSISSIPPI SENATE RACES - Raises the temperature:
very
attributed to a speaker, not counted Raises the temperature
own state's voting system is very confusing, and warned that the closevery
1 point Raises the temperature
against repealing ranked-choice voting lead very narrowly at 51.85%. That decision also
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 | 4 | 409 | 9.8 | 20.0 (words 1 to 200) | 14.9 | 0 to 40 | 63 |
| Temperature | 1 | 409 | 2.4 | 5.0 (words 51 to 250) | 3.7 | 0 to 40 | 91 |
| Flagged attribution phrases | 0 | 409 | 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 1 to 200 of 409, with admits
, admitted
; Temperature, words 51 to 250 of 409, with very
.
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 63 + 10)0.4 × (Temperature 91 + 10)0.3 × (Flagged attribution phrases 100 + 10)0.2 × (Headline wording 100 + 10)0.1 − 10 = 81. 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) | 18 |
| 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: 1867487e7f5b5509. 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.