George Skelton ⁠17%

By George Skelton⁠17%

5/20/2026, 6:04:33 PM

BS Summary: This article contains 6 faulty reasoning types, including Primacy Effect, Appeal to Authority, and Representativeness Heuristic, with Halo Effect as the most egregious example at 70% saturation with 49 hits. Analysis detected 185 faulty-reasoning hits from 70 analyzed words, generating a BS Score of 32.4% and a BS Rank of ⁠17% (18,305 of 21,887 articles). This article is better (less manipulative) than 83.60% of the article peer group.

Political columnist George Skelton has covered government and politics for 60 years and for The Times since 1974. 
He has been a Times political writer and editor in Los Angeles, Sacramento bureau chief and White House correspondent. 
He has written a column on California politics, “Capitol Journal,” since 1993. 
Skelton is a Santa Barbara native, grew up in Ojai and received a journalism degree at San Jose State. 
Article reasoning-pattern comparisonThis article: 0.0%George Skelton: 2.8%Daily Pilot: 2.9%Confirmation Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%George Skelton: 0.0%Daily Pilot: 1.2%Anchoring Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%George Skelton: 4.9%Daily Pilot: 3.5%Availability Heuristic0.0%This article: 27.1%George Skelton: 0.9%Daily Pilot: 1.0%Representativeness Heuristic27.1%This article: 0.0%George Skelton: 0.0%Daily Pilot: 0.9%Hindsight Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%George Skelton: 1.0%Daily Pilot: 1.9%Overconfidence Bias0.0%This article: 27.1%George Skelton: 7.7%Daily Pilot: 7.5%Framing Effect27.1%This article: 0.0%George Skelton: 1.7%Daily Pilot: 0.9%Loss Aversion0.0%This article: 0.0%George Skelton: 0.0%Daily Pilot: 0.9%Status Quo Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%George Skelton: 0.0%Daily Pilot: 0.2%Sunk Cost Effect0.0%This article: 0.0%George Skelton: 0.0%Daily Pilot: 3.6%Optimism Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%George Skelton: 2.1%Daily Pilot: 1.4%Pessimism Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%George Skelton: 3.0%Daily Pilot: 7.8%Negativity Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%George Skelton: 0.0%Daily Pilot: 2.2%Self-Serving Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%George Skelton: 0.0%Daily Pilot: 0.9%Fundamental Attribution Error0.0%This article: 0.0%George Skelton: 0.0%Daily Pilot: 0.2%Actor-Observer Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%George Skelton: 0.0%Daily Pilot: 1.6%In-Group Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%George Skelton: 0.0%Daily Pilot: 0.6%Out-Group Homogeneity Bias0.0%This article: 70.0%George Skelton: 2.3%Daily Pilot: 5.1%Halo Effect70.0%This article: 0.0%George Skelton: 1.3%Daily Pilot: 0.2%Horn Effect0.0%This article: 0.0%George Skelton: 0.0%Daily Pilot: 0.0%Dunning-Kruger Effect0.0%This article: 17.1%George Skelton: 4.0%Daily Pilot: 1.3%Recency Bias17.1%This article: 70.0%George Skelton: 2.3%Daily Pilot: 0.4%Primacy Effect70.0%This article: 0.0%George Skelton: 0.0%Daily Pilot: 0.1%Blind-Spot Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%George Skelton: 2.6%Daily Pilot: 0.9%Ad Hominem0.0%This article: 0.0%George Skelton: 0.0%Daily Pilot: 0.3%Straw Man0.0%This article: 52.9%George Skelton: 1.8%Daily Pilot: 4.9%Appeal to Authority52.9%This article: 0.0%George Skelton: 1.0%Daily Pilot: 1.2%False Dilemma0.0%This article: 0.0%George Skelton: 0.0%Daily Pilot: 0.7%Slippery Slope0.0%This article: 0.0%George Skelton: 0.0%Daily Pilot: 0.1%Circular Reasoning0.0%This article: 0.0%George Skelton: 8.5%Daily Pilot: 4.4%Hasty Generalization0.0%This article: 0.0%George Skelton: 0.0%Daily Pilot: 0.3%Red Herring0.0%This article: 0.0%George Skelton: 0.0%Daily Pilot: 1.0%Bandwagon0.0%This article: 0.0%George Skelton: 3.3%Daily Pilot: 5.7%Appeal to Emotion0.0%This article: 0.0%George Skelton: 0.0%Daily Pilot: 0.7%Begging the Question0.0%This article: 0.0%George Skelton: 0.0%Daily Pilot: 2.6%Post Hoc (False Cause)0.0%This article: 0.0%George Skelton: 0.0%Daily Pilot: 0.1%Tu Quoque0.0%This article: 0.0%George Skelton: 0.0%Daily Pilot: 0.4%Burden of Proof0.0%This article: 0.0%George Skelton: 0.2%Daily Pilot: 0.2%Appeal to Nature0.0%This article: 0.0%George Skelton: 0.0%Daily Pilot: 0.3%Composition/Division0.0%This article: 0.0%George Skelton: 1.1%Daily Pilot: 2.8%Anecdotal0.0%This article: 0.0%George Skelton: 0.0%Daily Pilot: 0.1%No True Scotsman0.0%This article: 0.0%George Skelton: 0.0%Daily Pilot: 1.6%Ambiguity (Equivocation)0.0%This article: 0.0%George Skelton: 0.0%Daily Pilot: 0.0%Gambler’s Fallacy0.0%This article: 0.0%George Skelton: 0.0%Daily Pilot: 0.1%Middle Ground0.0%This article: 0.0%George Skelton: 0.0%Daily Pilot: 0.1%Personal Incredulity0.0%This article: 0.0%George Skelton: 0.0%Daily Pilot: 0.2%Special Pleading0.0%This article: 0.0%George Skelton: 0.0%Daily Pilot: 0.3%Genetic Fallacy0.0%This article: 0.0%George Skelton: 0.0%Daily Pilot: 1.3%Unattributed Quote0.0%This article: 0.0%George Skelton: 0.0%Daily Pilot: 0.8%Quote-first Misdirection0.0%This article: 0.0%George Skelton: 15.0%Daily Pilot: 6.0%Biased Writer Voice0.0%This article: 0.0%George Skelton: 0.0%Daily Pilot: 1.5%Indoctrination0.0%This article: 0.0%George Skelton: 0.0%Daily Pilot: 0.9%Politically Left Leaning Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%George Skelton: 3.4%Daily Pilot: 0.3%Politically Right Leaning Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%George Skelton: 0.0%Daily Pilot: 4.0%Attempt to Sell a Product or S…0.0%

70 words analyzed.

Speakers

1speaker100%attributed speech0writer words
Voice mapSelect a segment to jump to its words
George Skelton • 2 words • 0.0% coverageGeorge Skelton • 18 words • 0.0% coverageGeorge Skelton • 19 words • 0.0% coverageGeorge Skelton • 12 words • 0.0% coverageGeorge Skelton • 19 words • 0.0% coverage
Selected voice

George Skelton

97%flagged-word coverage
70 attributed words100% of attributed speech0% writer coverage

No manipulation-pattern hits were found in this speaker's attributed words or the writer's voice.

Attribution is sentence-level. Pattern percentages are calculated only from words assigned to that voice.

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Analysis

Hover over highlighted words in the article to view the associated bias or fallacy analysis.