Politifact is biased

C1. Sample size and comprehensive coverageCon claims "The accuracy of reporting generally increases with increase in sample size." Con does not not say why accuracy of reporting increases with sample size, and there is no reason to believe that it does. What increases with sample size is the accuracy with which the bias is known. For example, suppose a coin is loaded so that on average "heads" comes up two-thirds of the time. If the coin is flipped 10 times, it might record six heads and four tails. A thousand flips might shows 660 heads and 340 tails. What is getting more accurate is the ratio of heads to tails approaching 2:1. Flipping the coin a lot is not going to make it a fair coin. The bias just becomes more clear and harder to dispute.If staff size brought accuracy then People's Daily ought to be one of the most accurate news sources in the world, because their news organization covers all of China. In the U.S., News Corporation, owners of Fox News and The Wall Street Journal, is the largest news organization [10. http://en.wikipedia.org...], so by Con's theory it should be the least biased. The size of an organization says nothing one way or the other about bias.Michael Dobbs, the Washington Post's original fact checker whom Con referenced said that the Post has a staff of two compared to six at Politifact, "To make up for these deficiencies, I attempted to draw on the more specialized knowledge of other Post reporters and the Washington think-tank community. .. I was also assisted by my readers, ... But I could certainly have benefited from “support networks”, such as the recently established 'Public Insight Network' which aims to connect reporters with knowledgeable sources trusted by other journalists." [Con's ref 7] With one-third of the dedicated staff, The Fact Checker checked 32.6% as many cases. We would expect 33.3% from a staff of two rather than six. Given the much larger staff of reporters to draw upon at the Post, the quality of the checking is likely to be higher. Dobbs being "overwhelmed by the deluge of political information" meant that he didn't have time to check as many claims as he would have liked. He put as much or more effort into checking each claim considered as Politifact.Con tells us his "quick glance" convinces him that Politifact checks on more substantial issues than Fact Checker. Except he hedges that " At best, the Fact Checker's individual claims are of similar quality." If Con wants to make that claim he needs a comprehensive study, not his quick glance that reveals they are at best equal. In any case, why are more-trivial issues likely to more or less biased than than less-trivial issues? C2. The Washington Post is not a conservative publicationCon is not the only person in the U.S. to think that the Washington Post is a conservative newspaper, but there are not many others. Objective analysis shows the Post to be moderately left-of-center. "... a UCLA-led study, which is believed to be the first successful attempt at objectively quantifying bias in a range of media outlets and ranking them accordingly." [11. http://newsroom.ucla.edu...] The study, published in peer-reviewed journal, judged media by how often they referenced sources that were also referenced by Congress people who had been rated liberal or conservative by Americans for Democratic Action. The ADA scores lawmakers based on their voting records, with 100 most liberal and zero most conservative. The results showed 18 of 20 media outlets to be left of center, "Most of the outlets were less liberal than Lieberman but more liberal than former Sen. John Breaux, D-La. Those media outlets included ... The Washington Post." Fox News and The Washington Times, the Post's conservative competitor, scored right-of-center. Liberals widely acknowledge that the media has a liberal bias. [12. http://www.mrc.org...] "Are reporters biased? There is no doubt that — I’ve worked at the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, and worked here at Politico. If I had to guess, if you put all of the reporters that I’ve ever worked with on truth serum, most of them vote Democratic.”— Politico's Jim VandeHei Con claims that Post ombudsman Deborah Howell was a conservative. She voted for Obama twice, so there is no chance of that. Con relies solely upon Howell having reported that lobbyist Jack Abramoff had directed contribution to Democrats as well as Republicans. Wikipedia now cites Howell's claim as fact, "Of the approximately $85 million in tribal money entrusted to Abramoff, ... over $4.4 million since 1999 were directed to at least 250 members of Congress, primarily Republicans in leadership positions or on relevant committees, and Democrats with standing connections to Native American interests (in a 2:1 GOP ratio)." [12. http://en.wikipedia.org...] Wikipedia goes on to cite contributions given to Sen Harry Reid by Abramoff clients. Con says Howell was fired for this bit of truth telling. What the incident shows is the Post's liberal slant that could not accept an accurate assessment.Con tells us that the Washington Post once failed to blame the economy on George Bush. If that isn't conservative bias, what it could be?Four years out and $6 trillion in stimulus later, it's reasonable not to point to Bush at every turn.Comparison of The Fact Checker with Politifact clearly establishes Politifact's bias. It is not plausible that Republicans really tell nine times as many big lies as Democrats, but the Fact Checker was so biased as to find them about equal. The bias is with Politifact.Examples1. Con points to a factcheck.org articles that strains to refute Sen. Rand Paul's claim that Federal workers are paid twice what those in private enterprise receive. Paul's reference was a study by the Cato Institute that used BEA data to compute total Federal compensation at $123,049." The factcheck.org argument is in two parts, "First, BEA says the figure is inflated by including compensation that is actually paid to benefit retirees, not just for current workers. The figure is at least several thousand dollars too high, by our calculations." But Paul had said Federal workers were getting $120,000, several thousand below the source figure. Then factcheck.org went on to argue that Federal workers were better educated and had more experience than private sector workers, so Federal workers deserved more.But whether or not they deserve more is a different argument, not a simple fact. Federal workers are also nearly impossible to fire, so their job security is worth a great deal, incomparable in the private sector. That could have made Paul's claim an underestimate. The article also notes that Federal retirement benefits are indefinite.2. The question is whether the projected costs of Obamacare nearly doubled. Obama claimed it would cost $900 billion for ten years; CBO later estimated $1.7 billion and is now approaching $3 trillion. The arguments for the claim being false are details at the 10% error level amid much greater unknowns and ever-rising costs. 3. "The average high temperature in Phoenix in July is 106 F." Fact check that with Politifact methods and you get "That's only half true, because it's dry." Additional arguments are not fact checking, they are expressing politics. In the case of 98% partisan, if the 80% of non-partisan votes is subtracted, then the record is 90% partisan on votes where it mattered. Why didn't Politifact do that simple math?4. Politifact admitted they used the standard of "a formal State apology." No one claimed that. The supposition is by itself partisan bias.5. CBO is acknowledging that the ten year estimates of Obamacare costs were based upon taxes being collected upfront and benefits paid out later. Rising costs accurately reveal the great extent of the front loading. Honest fact checking would have pointed that out.