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In regards to the predictions, it's important to understand that their role in it was the same as it is with the weather forecast: they're just reporting what p
by matt4077 10y ago
In regards to the predictions, it's important to understand that their role in it was the same as it is with the weather forecast: they're just reporting what people come up with.
Those people, the pollsters and aggregators, were indeed wrong with regards to the winner. It's however important to note that the polls were less than 3% off. It just happened to make quite a difference in the winner-take-all system.
538 was arguably more right than others: their model sensed the uncertainty and gave Trump a 30% chance of winning.
Compared to the NYT/WaPo/WSJ, the self-styled outsiders like The Intercept are incredibly biased, or just bad. It's sometimes hard to see how information flows, but barely any actual news starts at The Incept/Breitbart/HuffPost/etc.
- saynsedit 10y agoWhat is The Intercept's bias?
- underbluewaters 10y agoThey are harshly critical of unchallenged power, so of Obama, US foreign policy, and Clinton. People perceive that as a bias against Democrats but I'd expect we're about to see some good reporting against the Republicans now.
- saynsedit 10y agoI don't see being critical of people in power as a bias, unless you're saying that they don't spend enough time being critical of people not in power.
- bubbleRefuge 10y agoDon't forget HuffPo's models giving HRC an 90% chance a few days before.
- matt4077 10y agoYeah, HuffPo is just one of the leeches feeding of actual journalism. I really enjoyed the little fight they got themselves into the day before the election – their failure is/was to consider the errors in state polls to be independent.
- code_duck 10y agoThat could have been completely correct... and the card was drawn for one of those 10%. To test that probability empirically, we'd have to have the election at least a couple dozen times, right?
- MatthaeusHarris 10y agoSimultaneously and independently, with exact copies of all registered voters.
- crdoconnor 10y ago>It's however important to note that the polls were less than 3% off Wisconsin last poll 41% for trump, Wisconsin result 49% (~8% off) Michigan last poll 42% for trump, Michigan result 48% (~6% off) North Carolina last poll 45% for trump, North carolina result 51% (~6% off) Florida last poll 45% for trump, Florida result 49% (~4% off) Source: http://www.electoral-vote.com/evp2016/Pres/Maps/Nov09.html http://www.electoral-vote.com/evp2016/Pres/Maps/Nov09.html http://www.electoral-vote.com/evp2016/Pres/Maps/Nov08.html http://www.electoral-vote.com/evp2016/Pres/Maps/Nov08.html You can't excuse the pollsters. That's an epic fuck up.
- matt4077 10y agoYou're doing a bit of cherry-picking but I guess it's only fair, since reality conspired to do it similarly. Not sure how far off the polls were in aggregate. But my point was mostly that the media doesn't have much to do with the polling. And secondly, I think it's important to distinguish between ideological bias and just simply mistakes. There are many pollsters from all over the political spectrum and I'm convinced that they made a best effort to be accurate, and that it has just become difficult to do accurate polling. Or that the polling may have even given a very accurate picture of reality, but that volatility has just increased dramatically.
- crdoconnor 10y agoI just picked the states which actually decided the election. For all I know it was 8% off in Oregon too but that wouldn't have mattered. It did appear that there was a systemic bias against Trump in the polls, whether intentional or not.
- saynsedit 10y agoMy original point said nothing on the media's involvement with polling, outside of simply reporting it. As for the pollsters, whether it was ideological bias or simply mistake is also irrelevant to my original point. My claim is that the "real news" committed the journalistic equivalent of manslaughter. Whether or not they intended to mislead the public doesn't negate the fact that the public was misled. Blaming "fake news" doesn't justify their own role in misleading the public. There is no court of journalism, but the consequences regardless will be that people will trust the traditional news sources less.
- code_duck 10y agoThey could have said it was a 95% chance, or that it was a 10% chance of Trump winning and been just as 'right'. The only thing that could be 'wrong' in predicting a probability like that is if they say there is no chance of something, and it happens.