Politifact is biased

1) Large sample size and comprehensive coverageThe accuracy of reporting generally increases with increase in sample size. Politifact has a very large sample size of 820 facts checked during the 2012 presidential election campaign [1]. This is 3 times more than Pro's preferred Fact Checker, which rated 267 facts [2]. In addition, Politifact is staffed by a team dedicated primarily towards researching and checking facts[3]. The Fact Checker on the other hand is staffed by two reporters [7][4]. Michael Dobbs, the founder of Fact Checker admits to being often overwhelmed by the deluge of political information [7] due to the small staff size. It is no wonder then, that Fact Checker was unable to provide coverage comprehensive enough to match Politifact's standards which accounts for the discrepancies. Quantity is not the only factor however; quality matters as well. A quick glance at the front page of the Fact Checker shows a significant number of irrelevant facts checked as opposed to relevant scholarly ones. Examples include Obama's comments on Sesame street [5] and Romney's misfire on the national anthem [6]. While Politifact also checks occasional irrelevant facts, a glance at [1] shows that most of its facts are well-sourced and based on economics and politics. At best, the Fact Checker's individual claims are of similar quality. The sheer number of facts checked by Politifact however allows it to provide a more comprehensive coverage. 2) The Fact Checker isn't unbiased or liberalNearly every article for the Fact Checker has been written by Glenn Kessler or by his predecessor and founder Michael Dobbs [8]. Pro says that many employees of the Washington Post (WP) voted for Obama. It is irrelevant. It doesn't make Glenn Kessler an unbiased/liberal reporter. Furthermore, pro offers this "proof" of WP's impartiality through Ombudsman Deborah Howell of the WP and tries to establish that the WP is either liberal/neutral. However, Howell herself has a conservative bias. In 2006, she got involved in a dispute with her readers over her claims that lobbyist Jack Abramoff who took millions of dollars from Native American tribes “had made substantial campaign contributions to both major parties” [9]. However, according to Howard Dean “the Federal Election Commission (FEC) reports show that there is no evidence that Jack Abramoff ever gave any democrat any money” [10]. After being proven wrong Howell responded by saying that Abramoff 'directed' contributions to both parties. Yet, when readers of her blog pointed out that there was no evidence that Abramoff directed contributions to democrats [11], the management of the WP shut down and pulled all comments from the blog [12]. WP's ombudsman made false claims in favor of Republicans and when called out, she and management covered it up. Pro uses Howell's testimony to prove that the WP is neutral. It is unreliable. Prefer my evidence that WP has a conservative bias. Robert Parry of Consortium News which provides independent investigative journalism writes that the WP is creating a negative frame for the Obama administration by portraying the recession as an Obama problem while declining to mention in those articles a 6.2% drop in GDP in the fourth quarter of 2008 that the starting decline occurred under Bush not Obama [13]. Politifact ends up pointing out more Republican lies than Democratic ones simply because it is true. Pro claims that it contradicts the results of the Fact Checker but the WP isn't neutral, the Fact Checker is understaffed, and covers about 1/3 the number of facts covered by Politifact. 3) Responses to Pro's examples a) Rand Paul claims that federal workers are paid double that of private workers (120k for federal vs 60k for private). However, he added benefits to salary by doing the calculations himself. He based his analysis off of figures from The Bereau of Economic Analysis (BEA) [14]. His methology was to divide total compensation (salary and benefits) of all Federal employees by the number of current employees to get the per capita total. This is misleading because it includes the compensation paid to retirees but only divides by the number of current workers. So, the number is wrong [14]. Politifact was right. b) Rob Cornilles claims that Democratic state senator Suzanne Bonamici "has talked about separating herself from her party but the reality is she votes 98 percent of the time with the Democrats in Salem. I don't know how that represents bipartisanship; that represents to me more of the same.[15]" Cornilles used that 98% vote as a reason to argue that his opponent isn't bipartisan. Legislators take many votes that are routine so Democrats and Republicans often vote the same way on many issues. Politifact compared Bonamici's votes with the Democrats as well as her votes with 3 selected Republicans with strong Republican stances. It was found that Bonamici voted with the Democrats 98% of the time and she voted with the Republicans an average of 80% of the time. However, Cornille neglects to mention that Bonamici often voted with the Republicans. Politifact rated this statement as a Half-True statement which means “partially accurate but leaves out important details or takes things out of context.” Pro's source skates over the part where Cornilles deduces a conclusion of partisanship while ignoring the number of times Bonomici voted with the Republicans. c) Apology Tour: Pro has not given any statement that he claims is an apology. In a point about semantics, this is important. If Pro does so, I will refute it next round. d) Affordable Care Act (ACA): A television ad from a group called American Commitment claimed that the ACA “could cost upto $2 trillion, double what we were promised. [16]” They mentioned that their claim was from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO). To provide some background, the claim made by the ad about “double what we were promised” referred to the contention that the latest estimates released by the CBO in March 2012 were double the estimates originally released by the CBO in 2010. This is false for 2 reasons:(i) The ad was considering gross cost from 2012 to 2022 (for 11 years) which was $1762 billion as opposed to net cost of $1252 billion [18]. It does not factor in the offset of $510 billion in receipts and other budgetary effects. CBO writes in its publication that while the gross costs are higher, the offsetting budgetary effects are also higher leading to a very small increase in net cost. Pro claims that there offsets are projected by the Obama Administration “on paper” and are temporary. He is wrong on both counts. The offsets have been projected by the CBO and have been projected for the entire 10-year duration[18]. With that point negated, it can be seen that using gross costs is essentially cherry-picking for political gain since they represent only part of the effects of the ACA as opposed to all of it. (ii) The ad compares apples to oranges. It compares a 10-year period (2010-2019) with an 11-year period (2012-2022). Calculations performed on a uniform 8-year time span (2012-2019) for both the original “promise” and the latest results and found out that the gross costs increased by only 8.6% and the net cost actually declined by 0.64% [22]. The CBO which the ad cited rebutted the charge that the costs have doubled [20]. Politifact correctly labeled this statement false.Sources [1] http://tiny.cc... [2] http://tiny.cc... [3] http://tiny.cc... [4] http://tiny.cc... [5] http://tiny.cc... [6] http://tiny.cc... [7] http://tiny.cc... [8] http://tiny.cc... [9] http://tiny.cc... [10] http://tiny.cc... [11] http://tiny.cc... [12] http://tiny.cc... [13] http://tiny.cc... [14] http://tiny.cc... [15] http://tiny.cc... [16] http://tiny.cc... [17] http://tiny.cc... [18] http://tiny.cc... [19] http://tiny.cc... [20] http://tiny.cc... [21] http://tiny.cc...