Donald Trump is turning America into a dictatorship

Fox news is pretty mixed and not very trustworthy for information.
https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/fox-news/

Ram's RFD, Part 2:

2.) Trump and Republicans are engaging in voter suppression and gerrymandering. Cons main defense was not that this was not happening, but that everyone does it. Admitting that your opponents primary factual claims are correct on their face concedes the argument unless con attempted to show these actions do not undermine democracy - which he did not. Pro caveated “Trump and the republicans”, while con correctly points out Trump isn’t The instigator of these policies, cons argument that Trump is the leader of the party is a valid rebuttal with this caveat. As a result pro was far more compelling. 2-0 pro.
3.) Trump undermines the free media. Pro explains that Trump is undermining the free media, and is a compulsive liar. Con offers very little rebuttal of the latter, and basically rejects cons source without justification. Pro wins the lies argument. On the undermining of the media, instead of really arguing the point, cons primary argument wasn’t to use a very generic argument - without any specific examples or citations - that trump is fighting back, and the media is biased against him. This appears to implicit be arguing that Trump IS undermining the free media - but they deserve it. As he implicitly concedes the point, and offers no genuine defense or argument to support the media “deserving it” other than a very generic catch all argument with no examples or specific - This rebuttal is wholly ineffective. Pro 3-0
Pro wins arguments on all three points.

Ram's RFD, Part 1:

Sources: pro supported his first primary contention with sources, and supported a requested contention. Con supported none of his primary arguments with sources or references. As a result, sources go to pro.
Spelling + grammar. Con made several grammatical and spelling errors that tripped me up l. I didn’t notice any from pro: examples: “You did not rebuttal to this.” “no where”, “completely false left wing agenda's”.
Conduct to pro. Con forfeited, pro deliberately ceded a round to make it fair: that’s good form - I would have awaded this point for cons forfeit alone, but must also stare that Con was also rude in the comments. Being rude, snide during a debate, even in the comments, is bad form.
Arguments. There were three main points raised. In the opening round pro met the basic burden of proof on all three - and I hoped the rest of the debate would revolve on defense and tear down of these points. The were:
1.) Trump is undermining the rule of law by his usage of the justice department. Cons rebuttal focused on the single example raised by pro - which was reasonable. However pro went on to list several other actions, and con did not present a cohesive rebuttal, making a limited reference to the attorney general being weak and then changing the subject to talk about Hillary clinton. Cons defense fell far short of rebutting pros contention. 1-0 pro.

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>Reported Vote: Ramshutu // Mod action: Removed

>Points Awarded: 7 points to Pro

>Reason for Decision: [posted above]

>Reason for Mod Action: Arguments and conduct were sufficiently explained. However, sources and S/G were not. To award sources, the voter must "explain how the sources were relevant to the debate. This requires that the voter explain how the sources impacted the debate, directly assessing the strength of at least one source." The voter does not do this. To award S/G, "a voter must start by giving specific references to the mistakes made by the debater(s). More importantly though, these spelling and/or grammatical mistakes need to be excessive. A good rule of thumb is that if the spelling or grammar render the arguments incoherent or incomprehensible, the coherent side is awarded these points." The voter does not sufficiently ground the excessiveness of the S/G violations; where excessive means very frequent or severe. To cast a sufficient vote, the voter may keep his existing argument and conduct analysis, and must add information on the excessiveness of S/G violations and on how the sources *impacted* the debate while also analyzing at least one source example. Alternatively, the voter could keep their RFD as-is but simply not award S/G and/or Sources points.
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Points for conduct and spelling are certainly nitpicky.

I've never seen such a biased vote in my life.

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>Reported Vote: Argent_Tongue // Mod action: Removed

>Points Awarded: 3 points to Con for arguments

>Reason for Decision: Both participants used reliable sources of some manner, therefore it was a tie in terms of sourcing information. Both the supporting and proposing sides had acceptable grammar and spelling, resulting in another tie. Both Pro and Con failed to honor their obligation in at least one round, earning an equal distribution of points to both contestants. However, in terms of argument, Pro however, made an unsupported and rather fallacious assertion that a major news network was objective in its outlook and style of presenting information to the US public.

>Reason for Mod Action: The voter fails to survey all the main arguments and to then weigh them to arrive at a decision. The voter may cast a sufficient vote by (a) surveying the main arguments within the debate and (b) weighing those arguments for their relative strength in order to arrive at a verdict.
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>Reported Vote: Polytheist-Witch // Mod action: Removed

>Points Awarded: 3 points to Con

>Reason for Decision: CNN and Fox are the two most political news sites in the US. To say one is bias and one is not is dishonest.

>Reason for Mod Action: The voter seems to insert their own preexisting opinion into the RFD, which is not permitted. However, even if that is not the case, the voter fails to survey the main arguments and to then weigh them to arrive at a decision. The RFD is very myopic. The voter may cast a sufficient vote by (a) surveying the main arguments within the debate and (b) weighing those arguments for their relative strength in order to arrive at a verdict.
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>Reported Vote: Dustryder // Mod action: Removed

>Points Awarded: 5 points to Pro for arguments and sources

>Reason for Decision: Sources: Con made little attempt to substantiate his counter-arguments with sources. The one source con used had little relevance to the topic at hand (CNN is left-leaning. This is irrelevant to whether Trump is "undermining one of the fundamental elements of a republic: free press")
Spelling and grammar: Con had slightly worse spelling/grammar over Pro.
lye->lie
there->their
No where->Nowhere
You did not rebuttal to this->You did not rebut this/You did not make a rebuttal to this
However this did not hurt readability
Conduct: Tie. Both were relatively polite
Arguments: Con failed to effectively address Pro's arguments. Later arguments nitpick over irrelevant details, leaving the overarching point unaddressed. I also note that Con has used instances of whataboutism and appeal to tradition which detract from his arguments.

>Reason for Mod Action: On sources, the voter fails to explain how the use of sources effected the debate itself and failed to do any comparison between both debaters' use of sources. On arguments, the voter fails to conduct any weighing analysis and fails to survey the main arguments of the debate. The voter may cast a sufficient vote by explaining how the source impacted the debate itself and by surveying and then weighing the main arguments in the debate.
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@McSloth

I personally do not care for any major news outlet - they all are equally distasteful in my opinion. However, for the sake of this topic, I would need to point out that the 'score cards' created by politifact are unreliable at best. The means they used to assess the honesty of each station was highly subjective in a variety of ways. The comments used to produce their data were only a select few pulled from the vast majority. This is a bit like critiquing the integrity of an individual based off of a sample of the statements they have made, only all of the statements chosen are untrue. If, in theory, the better part of total things said by this person happen to be true, this will not show in the data produced from the sample, as it has been populated with all un-truths. It also happens that 33% the comments selected for the scorecards were suggested to the site by the public - meaning that the data collected is possibly influenced by bias.

Also, the set you linked was relevant only to a single month.

I would caution against making broad claims based on statistics, as they are pliable. The other sites are also affected by this - I would be happy to elaborate on how.

You do know that politifact gave donations to the Hillary campaign, don't you. They are very left wing.

Fox is better than CNN. All you have to douis turn on cnn and they act like not letting in illegals is the worst thing ever. They hate Trump for enforcing the law, and act like he is putting children in "cages." Fox reports the whole truth, cnn half-asses, fox is better.

Are you sure you want to continue this? I gave you a perfect chance to walk away from a losing argument, but I have found myself with some free time so why not, let us continue.

The idea that CNN is better then Fox News is not a matter of opinion, it is fact. In almost every unit of measurement, CNN is better the Fox News.

Which news agency is more factual? CNN.

https://www.politifact.com/punditfact/article/2015/jan/27/msnbc-fox-cnn-move-needle-our-truth-o-meter-scorec/

Which agency produces more informed viewers? CNN.

http://publicmind.fdu.edu/2012/confirmed/

Which news agency had to drop their slogan of being "fair and balanced" ? Fox News.

https://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/337797-fox-news-drops-fair-and-balanced-slogan

Which news agency is more trusted? CNN.

https://www.rjionline.org/reporthtml.html

Do I need to continue ?

It is your opinion CNN is better. It is my opinion fox is better. CNN always trys to criticize trump. That is not objective reporting. You are wrong.

And here I thought you were better then that Boat, to say I am disappointed is an understatement. It's been a pleasure proving you wrong in this comment section, but I can now tell that you are just going to continue holding onto your beliefs no matter how many times I beat you over the head with reason and logic. Goodbye Boat, I'm sure we'll meet again in another debate or comment section.

cnn is still fake news. They continue to demonize trump, not report full stories, and fox news is way more factual.

You are just plain wrong.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/373814/cable-news-network-viewership-usa/

Also, are you going to answer any of the questions I proposed to you? By all means drop all my arguments but I at least wanted to give you another chance to argue them.

wait what;s the third outa the big 3

msnbc is ded

nobody watches them

Here's their ratings 5 years ago^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Here's their ratings now
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way down here

I would remind you that this whole discussion about the current state of journalism in the United States stemmed from your claim that CNN was fake news. Do you still think that? Or has someone actually changed your mind on something?

Never the less back to the whole issue of objectivity. What is more important in your opinion, being factual or objective? I would argue that being factual in your reporting far outweighs objectivity if we are forced to choose between the two. At least with factual reporting you can trust what you see and read, unlike a purely objective news source where you can only trust that they don't have some kind of motive.

The purpose of the news should be to inform the people and present the facts, if you can't even do that then I dare say you can barely call yourself a news agency. Never the less, I would argue that CNN is far more factual and objective then most media outlets, especially more then Fox News. Shouldn't your scorn be pointing towards the outlets that lack objectivity AND the ability to report facts? Why are you only focused on the objectivity of outlets? If anything you should be on the side of CNN and encourage other outlets to be more like them, and do not twist my words around either. I'm well aware of the problems at CNN, but they are definitely the best news outlet out of the big three.

Fox news and msnbc don't claim to be objective. CNN does.

So you're critiquing CNN more than FOX News and MSNBC because they claim to be objective? All of the news agencies claim to be objective, to do anything less harms their reputation as a news agency. No agency would ever come out and just state that they weren't objective, it would be committing corporate suicide. You and I can both find clips from the big three and we'll see all of them claim to be objective in their reporting. Again just because you lean left or right does not mean your reporting is false or inaccurate. It mostly has to do with what stories get reported on and the language used to describe events. CNN might lean left but that doesn't mean their reporting is false.

The website you cited even agrees with what I'm saying, this is a direct quote from their page on CNN.
"CNN has been inaccurately criticized as being fake news by President Trump and many of his supporters.

The site then continues to say that while
"CNN has failed numerous fact checks from Politifact. It should be noted that these fact checks were almost exclusively from guests on their numerous talk shows and not from the reporting of actual news, which tends to be factual ... CNN’s straight news reporting would earn a High rating for factual reporting".

Most agencies have a bias, but the reason why my critique of fox or msnbc is much less than cnn is because while they don't report to be objective journalists, cnn does, when they clearly have a liberal bias.

https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/cnn/

"CNN is fake news. The most obvious thing about CNN is that they report to be objective reporters, when in fact they have a clear democratic bias. They also make certain things seem bad with language or tone, but don't report the other side, like on illegal immigration, gun control, etc."
- Well if those actions constitutes a news agency being fake news then I don't see how any news agency is real news. Every one of the major and most of the smaller news agencies have some sort of bias, be in conservative or liberal. Fox News does the exact same things that CNN does but just racks up the fear mongering to an extreme level. Being bias in what stories you run does not take away from the fact that their reporting is factual and backed up by evidence. Don't even get me started on "language or tone" all of the media use loaded language, and doesn't report the other side? Do you not see all the panel shows CNN runs every night? As much as I hate such panels and what they become eventually (usually yelling matches), they allow for both sides to be heard without a doubt.

Sorry for the late response, I was busy with other debates and homework. See why I asked you not to reply so quickly on our other debate?

1. Jeff Sessions is a weak attorney general. He wants him fired. Nothing dictator like there. Also, your thing about Comey is purely an opinion. He did want Hillary jailed, he has not talked about it recently because the chances she will get jailed is slim, and that's because she broke the law and deleted over 30,000 emails. Does that mean anything to you?

2. Our country is not a democracy. It is a Constitutional Republic. Gerrymandering has always gone on before Trump was elected, so Trump is not responsible for gerrymandering. This is simply an opinion.

3. CNN is fake news. The most obvious thing about CNN is that they report to be objective reporters, when in fact they have a clear democratic bias. They also make certain things seem bad with language or tone, but don't report the other side, like on illegal immigration, gun control, etc.

Our_Boat_is_Right is a right-wing prick!

Now its even

Like the other's have said, insulting someone even in the comment's is still violation of conduct, that will cost you some points.

Insulting someone in the comment section is probably not the most mature thing to do, probably wont help you in voting stage either considering conduct is scored, might want to apologize Mr.Boat.

So this is what you resort to when you're losing.

this kid is a liberal joke