The arithmetic for one report
Mississippi’s Midterm Upset Proves That Demographics Matter Now More Than Ever
69High density of flagged expressions
What was read
1212 words in the outlet's own voice, plus 11 in the headline. 0% of the text is in quotes. 0 attribution markers (such as "said" or "according to") found.
Words found
- Word choice:
absolutely
1 point Editorializing
explained by flight from the absolutely disastrous policies by neighboring Memphis Democratsdisastrous
2 points Editorializing
by flight from the absolutely disastrous policies by neighboring Memphis Democrats thatillegal aliens
3 points Contentious label
Biden’s unprecedented mass invasion of illegal aliens . African Americans and Hispanics overwhelmingly vote - Raises the temperature:
hammered
1 point Raises the temperature
series of well-produced ads that hammered all of these points. While thedramatic
1 point Raises the temperature
demographic change. In fact, the dramatic demographic change in a single countylawless
2 points Raises the temperature
President Trump’s intervention , a lawless hellhole. The tripling of the Hispanicdramatic
1 point Raises the temperature
experienced a demographic change as dramatic as, say, Texas has, but Tuesdayvery
1 point Raises the temperature
election. Importing thousands of foreigners very likely flipped the Mississippi Senate racetruly
1 point Raises the temperature
seat rather than to a truly competitive one elsewhere. The defeat indramatic
1 point Raises the temperature
change has been even more dramatic , like Texas or North Carolina, and
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 | 6 | 1212 | 5.0 | 30.0 (words 451 to 650) | 17.5 | 0 to 40 | 56 |
| Temperature | 8 | 1212 | 6.6 | 10.0 (words 151 to 350) | 8.3 | 0 to 40 | 79 |
| Flagged attribution phrases | 0 | 1212 | 0.0 | 0.0 (words 1 to 200) | 0.0 | 0 to 20 | not established |
| Headline wording | 0 | 25 | 0.0 | headline only | 0.0 | 0 to 240 | 100 |
Densest stretch: Word choice, words 451 to 650 of 1212, with absolutely
, disastrous
, illegal aliens
; Temperature, words 151 to 350 of 1212, with hammered
, dramatic
.
Attribution is not established: the story's own text has no attribution and no flagged sourcing phrase, so this layer is left out instead of scoring 100.
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. Experimental: 0 of 2 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 56 + 10)0.4 × (Temperature 79 + 10)0.3 × (Flagged attribution phrases left out)0.2 × (Headline wording 100 + 10)0.1 − 10 = 69. 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) | 1 data.census.gov |
| Documents cited in the text (a report, bill, ruling, filing) | 0 |
| Checkable specifics (numbers and dates) | 38 |
| 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
- 52-46: not checked (no chamber named in the sentence).
Senate vote counts are checked against the Senate's roll-call list for four days before to one day after publication. Bills are looked up on Congress.gov. House counts are not checked yet. Shown beside the score, never part of it.
Record of this measurement
Method 3.1.0, word-list fingerprint 807a17189402a416, read by text extractor version 4. Fingerprint of the text read: 8a4f04affd850053. 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.