Politifact is biased

C1) Large sample size and comprehensive coverage The large sample size from Politifact prevents intentionally or unintentionally checking only facts where Republicans have told the truth. Pro misunderstands this to mean that a larger number is more unbiased because larger organizations are more to be trusted. This is not the case. A larger sample size increases the chances of checking a better selection of facts. Checking 827 of 1000 coins to find twice as many heads as tails is more accurate than checking 260 of them and finding an equal number of heads and tails. A larger sample gives a more accurate representation of the population than a smaller sample. This is where the WP fails. With a small number of facts checked, their numbers are skewed. Pro says that unless the FactChecker checks important facts, readership will suffer. It has - Politifact is much more popular. A large organization size (more staff per fact) increases competency. Politifact has a staff of 100 [3]. They come from different fields and different areas of expertise. Pro has conceded my point that Glenn Kessler needs to be a Jack of all Trades and that occasional favors from other reporters do not compare with a full time staff. His example of the Chinese newspaper tries to argue that a large staff size doesn't mean less bias. I haven't argued this. My argument here is for competency, not bias. C2) The Washington Post isn't Unbiased or LiberalWith regard to the bias for any publication, I can see 4 possibilites: conservative, liberal, unbiased, or undertermined. I don't have to prove that the Washington Post is conservative. All I need to prove is that they are neither unbiased nor liberal. This is because if there is enough doubt about the bias of the WP for it to be undetermined given all available information, we can simply extend my point about competency. Politifact is more competent than WP which accounts for any discrepancies of facts. Nevertheless, I have shown with enough examples how the WP has a conservative slant. The independent Consortium News show evidence of WP's conservative bias towards Obama. Pro responded by arguing that it has been 4 years since Obama took office but I have shown that there are articles as far back as 2009 that blame Obama for the recession a mere two months after he took office. Pro drops it.I have shown how Deborah Howell despite voting for Obama wrote articles slanted against Democrats and covered up concerns of readers. Native American tribes represented by Abramoff's firm gave money 2/3 to Republicans and 1/3 to Democrats. Abramoff himself gave money only to Republicans and no money to Democrats according to the FEC [10] [11] [Pro Rd 3 12]. Howell misrepresents this and claims that Republicans and Democrats received equal money from Abramoff. Furthermore, she and WP management shut down the blog and removed comments which was uncontested by Pro. Based on this coverup, Howell's credibility counts for little. She is also an employee of the WP, not an objective outsider like Consortium news. Weigh this against Consortium news whose credibility is uncontested.Pro jumps from “some journalists claim that the media is biased” to saying that “liberals acknowledge there is a liberal bias.” Pro made no attempt to justify the jump. Googling “conservative media bias in the United States” yields similar results. Pro's contention is dependent on the argument that liberals “acknowledge” media bias. Since he hasn't contested that the journalists claiming media bias aren't liberals, this nullifies the point. I agree with the ADA conclusions; they simply show how congresspeople were rated and doesn't address my rebuttal. The validity of the UCLA study is dependent on there being liberal media bias. They mark off the separation between liberal and conservative publications at 18-2 rather than 10-10. Without external proof that there is liberal media bias, the WP falling on the liberal side has little merit because I am arguing that their demarcation is off. It could just as well be that liberals merely cite journalistic quality sources resulting in the study having circular reasoning. Pro merely points out that the study was peer-reviewed appealing to authority. This is a debate and it is essential to argue the merits of the study regardless of peer-review since I have contested it. Pro hasn't attempted to do so thus concedes the point.C3) Examples1) Rand Paul: Let's try out Pro's Warren Buffet example. “I would maybe reduce Warren Buffet's wages by 10%. He makes $63 million.” Now as you can see, my statements imply that his wages themselves are $63 million. The context in Rand Paul's case clearly shows that he is intentionally or unintentionally leading the audience to believe that he is referring to wages. Pro says at the beginning of Round 2 that all errors are lies. Rand Paul did not get his numbers from the BEA but from a libertarian think tank, CATO [14]. The numbers are erroneous for several reasons. Firstly, as I showed, CATO's original research and opinions are biased because they have an agenda to limit the power of the government which Pro conceded. Secondly, the actual number provided by CATO was $123,000 but it included benefits paid to retirees without accounting for them. If you eliminate the retirees the figure is between $109,268 and $116,168 [14], not $120,000 making the term “several thousand” misleading. This is a triple-bind for Paul; he not only used total compensation instead of wages but inflated that number while getting analysis from a source whose credibility Pro couldn't defend.2) Rob Cornilles: The statement checked by Politifact was a compound statement where Paul also implies that voting with your party 98% of the time was partisan while omitting the fact that both parties voted together on many issues. The claim of partisanship was false and omitted vital information. Pro later claims that the real number is 90%, yet this is not the number mentioned by Paul. A half-true rating is justified when Pro needs to change the numbers to make it fit. 3) Apology tour: Pro claims that we should assign a “common dictionary definition” to the word apology. I ask which dictionary definition is appropriate? The best choice of term depends on the context. In this case, the president was accused of beginning his term with an apology tour. It is reasonable to assume that the GOP were accusing Obama of apologizing on behalf of the USA, as opposed to personally. The GOP never specified that Obama had given an “informal” apology. In the absence of such clarifications, formal definitions trump informal ones. Further, Pro has not given a single statement which he claims is an apology despite being asked twice. 4) Affordable Care Act: It is standard procedure for taxes to be counted before benefits and nothing unexpected. It is not the job of fact-checking organizations to provide the details of the internal workings of a Health Care plan. More importantly, the setup of taxes/benefits is the same from 2010 to 2012 so it is irrelevant to the claim saying that costs have doubled. Pro has now dropped that the ad compared a 10 year period to an 11 year period. He also dropped that net costs must be considered over gross costs.ConclusionPolitifact's numbers being different from WP is accounted for by competence. The WP is not a liberal or unbiased publication. They have been criticized of having conservative bias by independent publications. They are known to coverup unpleasant issues. Pro has been unable to defend the validity of the UCLA study when faced with a rebuttal. He appeals to a peer-review as opposed to debate the issue with me. All the examples given by Pro shows republicans fudging the numbers or making misleading claims. Pro has gone so far as to change the numbers in an attempt to make them fit. Fact-checking websites check the validity of facts and do not allow for this. Pro has been unable to prove any instance of Politifact bias.