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Nice to see they’re being so transparent about setting the record straight. Mistakes like this happen in the journalism business, but few outlets make a serious

Nice to see they’re being so transparent about setting the record straight. Mistakes like this happen in the journalism business, but few outlets make a serious effort correct misreporting beyond burying corrections where nobody sees them.

colemannugent 9y ago
Yeah, most news outlets will edit the original article with a small correction. Props to them for a full postmortem article.
- blensor 9y ago
  I am usually not one who favors government regulation of journalistic outlets, however I do have a proposal. Media outlets should be required to publish a correction of a story at least as visible and for at least as long as the initial incorrect version. This would prevent a site from first claiming something and then burying the correction somewhere where nobody finds it.
  - FabHK 9y ago
    In Germany, people covered by factual statements in the news have a right (under certain conditions) to demand a "Gegendarstellung" presenting their reply (consisting only of factual statements, not opinions), and that reply has to be in an equally prominent location/size/etc in the same media outlet. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_of_reply https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_of_reply https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gegendarstellung https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gegendarstellung
    - bonzini 9y ago
      Of course factual statements need not be true. There was a famous case in Italy where a politician denied having been incarcerated, while sending his reply from a state prison.
    - blensor 9y ago
      Does a "Gegendarstellung" not require a court order? I would very much love if the media outlets agree on self imposed "best practices for corrections". Which in the end should be a benefit for those complying because they can advertise it and be more believable
      - hwh 9y ago
        The right exists without a court order (and I'd wager it is more often granted than not by established outfits, with notable exceptions like tabloids - like Germany's largest newspaper Bild - and the yellow press). However, some will have to resort to go to the courts if the publishing entity does not comply. Which will take some effort, it being a civil rights matter - e.g. paying court fees up front (and claiming the money back in the same suit, leaving the applicant with the risk of an opposing party with no money).
  - 18pfsmt 9y ago
    I think a specific subdomain or directory for all corrections would also be helpful. Visibility should be long term without an expiration or redirect.
    - blensor 9y ago
      A separate list of corrections would definitely be a good counterbalance, but it would probably only matter to those who are already trying to verify the correctness of the story in the first place and not to those who took it at face value.
  - colemannugent 9y ago
    This would require the government determine "the truth" which is probably a really bad idea. I'm curious, how would you punish those who did not comply?
    - bglusman 9y ago
      would it, or would it leave it up to the article publisher, but say IF AND WHEN you issue a retraction/correction, here is the way you must do it? I don't know that I agree with the proposal per se, but I think this specific criticism is misguided/wrong.
      - colemannugent 9y ago
        Say the fed implemented this as you described: Why would any news company bother issuing corrections then? Publishers would just silently edit the article, forcing the federal government to monitor all news outlets content for changes. In the face of this daunting task, some naive senator would suggest that all news first be submitted to the fed for review. The only solution to this problem is the nationalization of the news media, which would be a very bad thing. Sometimes the only way to win is not to play.
stusmall 9y ago
Overall they do such a good job of that. They seem to really value self-improvement and reflection. Its part of what keeps me as a regular reader. One editor even does a yearly public review of the work he did that year, what he did wrong, and how he plans on improving it. https://fivethirtyeight.com/tag/mea-culpa/ https://fivethirtyeight.com/tag/mea-culpa/
- taoistextremist 9y ago
  Harry Enten is probably my favorite personality of FiveThirtyEight, mainly because of the amount of humility he has despite the fact that he's very good at his job from what I can tell.
weberc2 9y ago
I agree. This error has a pretty happy ending, but I think more political and ideological diversity in academia and journalism would help to spot these errors sooner and improve the overall quality of science and science journalism. In particular, in this case, a progressive research firm was trusted by academics who were trusted by journalists. Mistakes will happen regardless, but I wonder if a more skeptical eye somewhere in the pipeline would have caught this error sooner. Fortunately, there are bipartisan organizations like [Heterodox Academy][0] which are working to correct this. [0]: https://heterodoxacademy.org https://heterodoxacademy.org
- throwawayjava 9y ago
  The major ISPs have a ridiculous amount of resources and are free to publish datasets answering this question at any moment. In fact, I'd be astounded if they don't already have this data, both for themselves and for their competitors. So until ISPs share that data, I'm terminally unsympathetic to any sort of bias in the public record on this particular topic. Also, the selection of left-leaning people doing publicly accessible research is, AFAICT, a self-selection. The problem isn't that our institutions are biased, but that conservatives (in general) choose not to pursue scientific careers in the same numbers as liberals. This suggests a fundamental limit to your proposed solution because there aren't enough "heterodox" collaborators to ensure viewpoint diversity. One of the studies published on the website you mentioned even suggests this underlying cause. Also, I'll note that in the vast majority of academia, internal politics (what research methodologies, maths, etc. someone likes to use) are far more of a problem than external politics (of the sort you'd typically call "politics" in general conversation). E.g. I'm not at all worried about "liberal bias" in physics or chemistry or CS; if it's a problem at all, then it's a minor one compared to other problems.
  - weberc2 9y ago
    Whether or not the ISPs have this information is a fundamentally separate issue from whether ideological homogeneity biases science. There is no dichotomy here. The degree to which self selection plays a role is an interesting question. Firstly, there is a certain amount of overt harassment--for example, professors in the humanities and social sciences openly admit that they would be inclined to reject a candidate if they knew he or she was conservative. Also there are lots of other data, anecdotal or quantitative. Much more is needed, however. Importantly, the proportion of conservatives to liberals has been falling since the 90s, so something is driving the trend. It's also possible that conservatives are selecting out of a career that they (evidently correctly) perceive to be hostile to them or otherwise corrupt (more interested in furthering an agenda than seeking truth). The point is that even if it is self-selection, we may be able to improve the ratio enough to improve the science. And it's not like the ratio needs to be 50:50--probably 30:70 would suffice. Right now many fields are less than 10:90, and intuition suggests that the effect is nonlinear. If only 10% of faculty are conservative, intimidation causes them to suppress their already marginal voice, but 30% might be enough to allow them to feel secure in providing the sort of criticism those fields seem to desperately need. Of course, I'm picking on the academy, but the same probably holds true for journalism. Again, the point isn't to assign blame, but to improve the science.
rayiner 9y ago
Yeah this is wonderful. Some of the original data just didn’t make sense. For example, London County, which is home to the Dulles technology corridor and has the highest median income of any county in the US, with a 3.5% poverty rate, has only 50% home broadband uptake?
- mobilefriendly 9y ago
  I live a few miles outside of Loudoun County, still in DC metro, and I have NO terrestrial internet access beyond dialup. It is quite possible that large sections of Loudoun don't have real broadband, just DSL. The county doesn't even have 100% cell phone coverage. There's Dulles/Leesburg, and everywhere else.
  - Shivetya 9y ago
    most people don't realize how dismal even cellular coverage is in many parts of the country. they worry about broad band yet we cannot even guarantee you have coverage with any mobile device. worse people fight against it too
  - stordoff 9y ago
    Why is DSL not "real broadband"?
    - beardicus 9y ago
      Because the current US govt definition of "broadband" is a minimum of 25mbps down, and most DSL can't achieve those speeds.
      - mynameisvlad 9y ago
        According to footnote 11, the FCC data set uses 10/1 as the definition of "broadband"
        maxsilver 9y ago
wutbrodo 9y ago
Yea, 538 is one of the only outlets I can think of that quietly lives up to the standards that most media entities seem to think they hold themselves to. They're like Vox, minus the self-back-patting about intellectual honesty and plus the _actual_ intellectual honesty.

colemannugent 9y ago

Yeah, most news outlets will edit the original article with a small correction. Props to them for a full postmortem article.

blensor 9y ago
I am usually not one who favors government regulation of journalistic outlets, however I do have a proposal. Media outlets should be required to publish a correction of a story at least as visible and for at least as long as the initial incorrect version. This would prevent a site from first claiming something and then burying the correction somewhere where nobody finds it.
- FabHK 9y ago
  In Germany, people covered by factual statements in the news have a right (under certain conditions) to demand a "Gegendarstellung" presenting their reply (consisting only of factual statements, not opinions), and that reply has to be in an equally prominent location/size/etc in the same media outlet. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_of_reply https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_of_reply https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gegendarstellung https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gegendarstellung
  - bonzini 9y ago
    Of course factual statements need not be true. There was a famous case in Italy where a politician denied having been incarcerated, while sending his reply from a state prison.
  - blensor 9y ago
    Does a "Gegendarstellung" not require a court order? I would very much love if the media outlets agree on self imposed "best practices for corrections". Which in the end should be a benefit for those complying because they can advertise it and be more believable
    - hwh 9y ago
      The right exists without a court order (and I'd wager it is more often granted than not by established outfits, with notable exceptions like tabloids - like Germany's largest newspaper Bild - and the yellow press). However, some will have to resort to go to the courts if the publishing entity does not comply. Which will take some effort, it being a civil rights matter - e.g. paying court fees up front (and claiming the money back in the same suit, leaving the applicant with the risk of an opposing party with no money).
- 18pfsmt 9y ago
  I think a specific subdomain or directory for all corrections would also be helpful. Visibility should be long term without an expiration or redirect.
  - blensor 9y ago
    A separate list of corrections would definitely be a good counterbalance, but it would probably only matter to those who are already trying to verify the correctness of the story in the first place and not to those who took it at face value.
- colemannugent 9y ago
  This would require the government determine "the truth" which is probably a really bad idea. I'm curious, how would you punish those who did not comply?
  - bglusman 9y ago
    would it, or would it leave it up to the article publisher, but say IF AND WHEN you issue a retraction/correction, here is the way you must do it? I don't know that I agree with the proposal per se, but I think this specific criticism is misguided/wrong.
    - colemannugent 9y ago
      Say the fed implemented this as you described: Why would any news company bother issuing corrections then? Publishers would just silently edit the article, forcing the federal government to monitor all news outlets content for changes. In the face of this daunting task, some naive senator would suggest that all news first be submitted to the fed for review. The only solution to this problem is the nationalization of the news media, which would be a very bad thing. Sometimes the only way to win is not to play.

stusmall 9y ago

Overall they do such a good job of that. They seem to really value self-improvement and reflection. Its part of what keeps me as a regular reader. One editor even does a yearly public review of the work he did that year, what he did wrong, and how he plans on improving it. https://fivethirtyeight.com/tag/mea-culpa/ https://fivethirtyeight.com/tag/mea-culpa/

taoistextremist 9y ago
Harry Enten is probably my favorite personality of FiveThirtyEight, mainly because of the amount of humility he has despite the fact that he's very good at his job from what I can tell.

weberc2 9y ago

I agree. This error has a pretty happy ending, but I think more political and ideological diversity in academia and journalism would help to spot these errors sooner and improve the overall quality of science and science journalism. In particular, in this case, a progressive research firm was trusted by academics who were trusted by journalists. Mistakes will happen regardless, but I wonder if a more skeptical eye somewhere in the pipeline would have caught this error sooner. Fortunately, there are bipartisan organizations like [Heterodox Academy][0] which are working to correct this. [0]: https://heterodoxacademy.org https://heterodoxacademy.org

throwawayjava 9y ago
The major ISPs have a ridiculous amount of resources and are free to publish datasets answering this question at any moment. In fact, I'd be astounded if they don't already have this data, both for themselves and for their competitors. So until ISPs share that data, I'm terminally unsympathetic to any sort of bias in the public record on this particular topic. Also, the selection of left-leaning people doing publicly accessible research is, AFAICT, a self-selection. The problem isn't that our institutions are biased, but that conservatives (in general) choose not to pursue scientific careers in the same numbers as liberals. This suggests a fundamental limit to your proposed solution because there aren't enough "heterodox" collaborators to ensure viewpoint diversity. One of the studies published on the website you mentioned even suggests this underlying cause. Also, I'll note that in the vast majority of academia, internal politics (what research methodologies, maths, etc. someone likes to use) are far more of a problem than external politics (of the sort you'd typically call "politics" in general conversation). E.g. I'm not at all worried about "liberal bias" in physics or chemistry or CS; if it's a problem at all, then it's a minor one compared to other problems.
- weberc2 9y ago
  Whether or not the ISPs have this information is a fundamentally separate issue from whether ideological homogeneity biases science. There is no dichotomy here. The degree to which self selection plays a role is an interesting question. Firstly, there is a certain amount of overt harassment--for example, professors in the humanities and social sciences openly admit that they would be inclined to reject a candidate if they knew he or she was conservative. Also there are lots of other data, anecdotal or quantitative. Much more is needed, however. Importantly, the proportion of conservatives to liberals has been falling since the 90s, so something is driving the trend. It's also possible that conservatives are selecting out of a career that they (evidently correctly) perceive to be hostile to them or otherwise corrupt (more interested in furthering an agenda than seeking truth). The point is that even if it is self-selection, we may be able to improve the ratio enough to improve the science. And it's not like the ratio needs to be 50:50--probably 30:70 would suffice. Right now many fields are less than 10:90, and intuition suggests that the effect is nonlinear. If only 10% of faculty are conservative, intimidation causes them to suppress their already marginal voice, but 30% might be enough to allow them to feel secure in providing the sort of criticism those fields seem to desperately need. Of course, I'm picking on the academy, but the same probably holds true for journalism. Again, the point isn't to assign blame, but to improve the science.

rayiner 9y ago

Yeah this is wonderful. Some of the original data just didn’t make sense. For example, London County, which is home to the Dulles technology corridor and has the highest median income of any county in the US, with a 3.5% poverty rate, has only 50% home broadband uptake?

mobilefriendly 9y ago
I live a few miles outside of Loudoun County, still in DC metro, and I have NO terrestrial internet access beyond dialup. It is quite possible that large sections of Loudoun don't have real broadband, just DSL. The county doesn't even have 100% cell phone coverage. There's Dulles/Leesburg, and everywhere else.
- Shivetya 9y ago
  most people don't realize how dismal even cellular coverage is in many parts of the country. they worry about broad band yet we cannot even guarantee you have coverage with any mobile device. worse people fight against it too
- stordoff 9y ago
  Why is DSL not "real broadband"?
  - beardicus 9y ago
    Because the current US govt definition of "broadband" is a minimum of 25mbps down, and most DSL can't achieve those speeds.
    - mynameisvlad 9y ago
      According to footnote 11, the FCC data set uses 10/1 as the definition of "broadband"
      - maxsilver 9y ago

wutbrodo 9y ago

Yea, 538 is one of the only outlets I can think of that quietly lives up to the standards that most media entities seem to think they hold themselves to. They're like Vox, minus the self-back-patting about intellectual honesty and plus the _actual_ intellectual honesty.