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(submitter here) The original title was "Why political journalists can’t stand Nate Silver: The limits of journalistic knowledge" I had to edit it because of t

(submitter here) The original title was "Why political journalists can’t stand Nate Silver: The limits of journalistic knowledge" I had to edit it because of the eighty character limit. Sorry about that. The central point of the article is about misunderstandings between people with different 'modes of knowledge', and not really about current USA politics (in which case I wouldn't have posted this here,I'm not a US citizen and so detached from the partisanship.) Hopefully the discussion here won't get into political argument.

martythemaniak 14y ago
I definitely hear that. In fact, Krugman wrote a piece along these lines, arguing that many journalists are very uncomfortable dealing with data. Instead of looking at lots of data and trying to draw conclusions, they want some magical insider to tell them what's really happening. http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/10/30/scoop-dupes/ http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/10/30/scoop-dupes/
- beagle3 14y ago
  It is not often that I find myself agreeing with Krugman (who likes to ignore data that does not fit his views). But in this case -- possibly because no data is actually invovled -- I agree completely. And unfortunately, that's true for most of the people, most of the time - if you asked your physician to substantiate any non-trivial recommendation he makes, you'd find that data supporting those recommendations is severely lacking or irrelevant. But most people want the magical insider (the doctor, in this case) to tell them what's happening, rather than the facts.
  - rhizome 14y ago
    I think in the case of journalism that the "doctor" wants to preserve some flexibility in interpretation that Mr. Silver takes away.
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
tzs 14y ago
An alternative to truncating to get under 80 is to take out most of the vowels: "Why pltcl jrnlsts cn't stnd Nate Silver: Th lmts of jrnlstc knwldg". That's only 66 characters.
- tzs 14y ago
  I don't understand why this is getting down voted. Vowel dropping preserves much more information than truncating.
  - pdonis 14y ago
    Because it requires a lot more mental effort to parse a headline without vowels, and people don't want to expend mental effort to parse headlines; they want to be able to make an instant decision on the question "do I bother clicking on this headline or not?" Lack of vowels makes that much harder.
    - aptwebapps 14y ago
      Or easier, if you're lazy like me.

martythemaniak 14y ago

I definitely hear that. In fact, Krugman wrote a piece along these lines, arguing that many journalists are very uncomfortable dealing with data. Instead of looking at lots of data and trying to draw conclusions, they want some magical insider to tell them what's really happening. http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/10/30/scoop-dupes/ http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/10/30/scoop-dupes/

beagle3 14y ago
It is not often that I find myself agreeing with Krugman (who likes to ignore data that does not fit his views). But in this case -- possibly because no data is actually invovled -- I agree completely. And unfortunately, that's true for most of the people, most of the time - if you asked your physician to substantiate any non-trivial recommendation he makes, you'd find that data supporting those recommendations is severely lacking or irrelevant. But most people want the magical insider (the doctor, in this case) to tell them what's happening, rather than the facts.
- rhizome 14y ago
  I think in the case of journalism that the "doctor" wants to preserve some flexibility in interpretation that Mr. Silver takes away.
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]

tzs 14y ago

An alternative to truncating to get under 80 is to take out most of the vowels: "Why pltcl jrnlsts cn't stnd Nate Silver: Th lmts of jrnlstc knwldg". That's only 66 characters.

tzs 14y ago
I don't understand why this is getting down voted. Vowel dropping preserves much more information than truncating.
- pdonis 14y ago
  Because it requires a lot more mental effort to parse a headline without vowels, and people don't want to expend mental effort to parse headlines; they want to be able to make an instant decision on the question "do I bother clicking on this headline or not?" Lack of vowels makes that much harder.
  - aptwebapps 14y ago
    Or easier, if you're lazy like me.