Newsweek, Kurtz uncritically repeated false fuel efficiency accusation against Obama

Summary: In a recent column, Newsweek's Keith Naughton stated as fact that Sen. Barack Obama's "assertion that Japanese cars average 45mpg, when the actual mileage is closer [to] 30mpg" was a "factual gaffe," echoing the Chicago Tribune's Jim Mateja. Likewise, The Washington Post's Howard Kurtz uncritically reprinted part of a Power Line post that highlighted Mateja's claim. However, a report from the Pew Center on Global Climate Change stated that the 2002 average fleet fuel economy value in Japan was 46.3 miles per gallon when converted to the U.S. Corporate Average Fuel Economy standard.

In a "web-exclusive" May 11 column on Newsweek's website, Newsweek Midwest bureau chief Keith Naughton stated as fact that Sen. Barack Obama's (D-IL) "assertion that Japanese cars average 45mpg, when the actual mileage is closer [to] 30mpg" was a "factual gaffe," echoing Jim Mateja, who made a similar claim in his May 10 Chicago Tribune column. Additionally, in his May 14 Washington Post "Media Notes" column, Washington Post media critic Howard Kurtz uncritically reprinted part of Power Line blogger Paul Mirengoff's May 10 weblog post that highlighted Mateja's column. As Media Matters for America and National Journal's The Hotline noted before Naughton's column was published, Mateja wrote that Obama "should [hire] a fact-checker" because Obama stated that "Japanese cars [are] now getting an average of 45 miles to the gallon." In fact, Obama's assertion was supported by the Pew Center on Global Climate Change's December 2004 "Comparison of Passenger Vehicle Fuel Economy and GHG Emission Standards Around the World," which calculated the 2002 average fleet fuel economy value in Japan was 46.3 miles per gallon when converted to the U.S. Corporate Average Fuel Economy standard.

According to the Pew Center report, its 46.3 miles per gallon calculation was based on a 2002 Japanese Automobile Manufacturers Association (JAMA) report. The Pew report derived the 46.3 miles per gallon number from a "not normalized" number of 34.3 miles per gallon reported by JAMA. The Pew report noted that the Japanese and U.S. mileage tests "differ in terms of speed profiles, duration in seconds, acceleration and deceleration profiles (slopes of rising and declining vehicle velocity), and frequencies of starts and stops." Based on simulations, the report concluded that "to roughly convert a fuel economy rating based on the Japanese cycle to one based on the U.S. CAFE [Corporate Average Fuel Economy] cycle, one multiplies by 1.35."

Despite Media Matters' May 11 item noting the Pew report, Kurtz uncritically reprinted part of Mirengoff's May 10 post in Kurtz's May 14 online column. By the time of Kurtz's column's publication, Power Line posted an update responding to Media Matters, but the update was not noted in Kurtz's column.

Several of the bloggers who, as Media Matters noted, uncritically reported that Obama was factually wrong in making his 45 miles per gallon assertion responded to Media Matters. For example:

• In a May 12 post, Power Line's John Hinderaker wrote, "You can't tell from the Media Matters post whether its author bothered to read the Pew report or not," noting that the report stated that an improvement in Japanese regulations "will result in an average fleet fuel economy of Japanese vehicles of 35.5 mpg by 2010." However, the report also notes in a footnote that "35.5 mpg" "has not converted to [the U.S.] CAFE test cycle." Hinderaker acknowledged "that different countries use different test procedures to measure fuel economy, and it [PEW] devised a system to normalize those different procedures." But he dismissed the validity of the normalization procedure for producing a "ridiculous" result: "I haven't had time to research the logic underlying Pew's conversion, nor do I intend to," because, he added, "[t]he claim that the Japanese automobile fleet had an average fuel efficiency of over 46 mpg ... is ridiculous."
  
  Hinderaker also cited a Fortune magazine article that said that "motor vehicle fleets get ... 31 mpg in Japan," but it is unclear what standard Fortune was using. Fortune did not cite its source for the 31 miles per gallon figure. It is possible that Fortune was referring to 31mpg under the Japanese fuel efficiency test.

• In his column, Mateja quoted a Toyota spokesman as saying, "No carmaker gets 45 m.p.g. Ours is closer to 30 m.p.g." In his May 13 post on The Hillary Spot weblog at National Review Online, contributor Jim Geraghty, who originally wrote that the May 10 column was a "good catch," defended the Toyota spokesman from the "easily-agitated folks at Media Matters," writing that the spokesman was "accurately describing the miles per gallon of Toyota vehicles sold in the United States, separate from Toyota vehicles sold in Japan." However, Geraghty conceded that "Obama was accurate if his term 'Japanese cars' referred only to cars sold in Japan; while from the context that seems like a safe bet, it might have helped if he had clarified ... that he wasn't referring to Japanese cars sold in the United States."

• In his May 14 blog post, NewsBusters executive editor Matthew Sheffield repeated the claim that "Barack Obama was caught ... for incorrectly stating that Japanese cars get an average of 45 miles per gallon." Sheffield asserted that "[f]ar-left groups," presumably Media Matters and Hotline, have reported on the figures in the Pew poll. Sheffield then claimed that Pew's normalization "doesn't seem to be accurate as John Hinderaker points out," but Hinderaker did not explain why the normalization ratio was incorrect, explicitly stating: "I haven't had time to research the logic underlying Pew's conversion." Sheffield was defending his May 10 post, in which, citing Mirengoff and Mateja's column, Sheffield said that Obama made an "unforced error" and a "significant mistake."

From Obama's May 7 speech:

OBAMA: For years, while foreign competitors were investing in more fuel-efficient technology for their vehicles, American automakers were spending their time investing in bigger, faster cars. And whenever an attempt was made to raise our fuel efficiency standards, the auto companies would lobby furiously against it, spending millions to prevent the very reform that could've saved their industry. Even as they've shed thousands of jobs and billions in profits over the last few years, they've continued to reward failure with lucrative bonuses for CEOs.

The consequences of these choices are now clear. While our fuel standards haven't moved from 27.5 miles per gallon in two decades, both China and Japan have surpassed us, with Japanese cars now getting an average of 45 miles to the gallon. And as the global demand for fuel-efficient and hybrid cars have skyrocketed, it's foreign competitors who are filling the orders. Just the other week, we learned that for the first time since 1931, Toyota has surpassed General Motors as the world's best-selling automaker.

At the dawn of the Internet Age, it was famously said that there are two kinds of businesses - those that use email and those that will. Today, there are two kinds of car companies - those that mass produce fuel-efficient cars and those that will.

The American auto industry can no longer afford to be one of those that will. What's more, America can't afford it. When the auto industry accounts for one in ten American jobs, we all have a stake in saving those jobs. When our economy, our security, and the safety of our planet depend on our ability to make cleaner, more fuel-efficient cars, every American has a responsibility to make sure that happens.

Automakers still refuse to make the transition to fuel-efficient production because they say it's too expensive at a time when they're losing profits and struggling under the weight of massive health care costs.

From Naughton's May 10 "web-exclusive" Newsweek column:

[Detroit Mayor Kwame] Kilpatrick [D] is kind, though, compared to what others in Detroit are saying. "Sen. Obama embarrassed himself in Detroit with his lack of understanding of the problems facing the automobile industry, and what it will really take to fix them," the conservative-leaning Detroit News said in an editorial beside a political cartoon mocking Obama for criticizing a Detroit SUV that turns out to be a Toyota Land Cruiser.

During his speech, the auto execs in the crowd -- and there were many -- began muttering that he didn't know what he was talking about. (One factual gaffe getting a lot of traction is Obama's assertion that Japanese cars average 45mpg, when the actual mileage is closer 30mpg). "It was definitely uncomfortable," says Eric Foster, a Detroit political consultant who sat near tables full of auto execs. "The mood lightened when he took on the oil industry."

From Kurtz's May 14 online Washington Post column:

Power Line's Paul Mirengoff sees a troubling trend for Obama:

"Barack Obama is really scuffling, as baseball players used to say when they went into a tailspin . . . He got the death count in the Kansas tornado wrong by 9,988 people. Now, Jim Geraghty reports that Obama botched his facts in a speech criticizing the U.S. auto industry for 'investing in bigger and faster cars while foreign competitors invested in more fuel-efficient technology.' Obama stated that 'while our fuel standards haven't moved from 27.5 miles per gallon in two decades, both China and Japan have surpassed us, with Japanese cars now getting an average of 45 miles to the gallon.' But Toyota, which should know, has responded that 'No carmaker gets 45 m.p.g; ours is closer to 30 m.p.g.'

"Any candidate can make a mistake or two, but the most recent one in particular suggests that Obama may lack the staff support he needs to compete with the Hillary Clinton machine."

— B.J.L.

Posted to the web on Tuesday, May 15, 2007 at 01:47 PM ET