Latest Posts
Lauren Ashburn/Howard Kurtz: Late-Night Comics Savage Mitt, Not Obama
October 31st, 2012A new study says Jay Leno, David Letterman and their pals are ripping Mitt Romney and the Republicans far more often than Barack Obama on the Democrats. Lauren Ashburn and Howard Kurtz on whether this amounts to political or comedic bias.
Lauren Ashburn/Howard Kurtz: Media Love the Obama/Christie Bromance
October 31st, 2012As the president tours Hurricane Sandy damage with the New Jersey governor, the media love the spectacle. Lauren Ashburn and Howard Kurtz on whether this is stealth campaigning that puts Mitt Romney at a severe disadvantage.
Data Mining: Big Brother Alert–Obama and Romney Are Stalking You Online
October 31st, 2012Did you know the Obama and Romney campaigns have dozens of tracking programs to follow you and serve you political ads? Lauren Ashburn and Howard Kurtz on how the campaigns are hiring outside companies to do what retailers do–with your privacy in the balance.
Presidential Polls: Why Is Everyone Picking On Nate Silver?
October 31st, 2012Nate Silver’s website, Five Thirty Eight, has been a go-to resource for those following politics for the past four years. Silver, with his background as a baseball sabermetrician, has been able to weigh data from both public polls and economic conditions to produce a highly accurate prediction of election results in the past two cycles. But Silver’s methods in the New York Times are under attack.
Silver has consistently given Barack Obama the edge over Romney and gives Obama a 72.9 percent chance of winning reelection. This has angered conservatives who see liberal bias in Silver’s methods. The backlash was spurred by a piece that appeared in the Examiner by Dean Chalmers, the conservative who “unskews polls” to produce the landslide win for Romney that the mainstream media isn’t reporting. Chalmers’s attack on Silver’s methods are not exactly well thought out:
Nate Silver is a man of very small stature, a thin and effeminate man with a soft-sounding voice that sounds almost exactly like the “Mr. New Castrati” voice used by Rush Limbaugh on his program.
Hurricane Hype: Why Sandy Coverage Is Uplifting
October 31st, 2012All too often, I’ve seen the machinery clank into action–team coverage, breathless anchors, intrepid correspondents getting soaked in the rain—only to watch the heavily hyped storms peter out. What used to be the province of local eyewitless news—gearing up at the merest threat of thunderstorms or snowfall—long ago became a cable news specialty. It’s a surefire way of goosing the ratings.
When I was in Tampa for the Republican convention, the saturation coverage helped force Mitt Romney to cancel the first night. Then Hurricane Isaac turned out to be a bust. We only got a little rain in Tampa. But the storm coverage continued to compete with the convention right up until Clint Eastwood argued with his chair.
But Hurricane Sandy was different. And I found myself grateful for the television coverage, as messy and chaotic as it often is. The weaknesses of live, breaking news can sometimes be its strengths.
