Perverse media incentive watch: Chris Cillizza
Today, the Washington Post's Chris Cillizza has moved Ohio from "lean Obama" to "tossup." Yet the current margin in Ohio is Obama +3.0+/-0.5% (n=14 polls, Oct. 13-Nov. 1) and probably insuperable. What could be Cillizza's reason?
He writes: "...the absolute necessity for Romney to win the state if he wants to be president - leads us to move it back to the 'tossup' category." Now here is some problematic reasoning. Romney needs Ohio, so therefore it's a toss-up. Ah yes, the "let's not bicker about who killed who" argument.
Cillizza is hardly alone. A few days ago, Wolf Blitzer at CNN cited a single Ohio poll, done by his own organization, showing Obama up by 4%. He then proceeded to call this a "tie," revealing an amazing inability to interpret a simple number. Compounding this is the fact that dozens of polls have been conducted in Ohio. The odds of an Obama lead are extremely high. So why does he persist?
The news media have an incentive to fuzz up the picture: ratings and profit. A message that the cake is fully baked does not automatically bring back the viewers. Without the artificial suspense, Cillizza and Blitzer are put in a position of having to say something substantive or interesting that gets beyond a horserace number. Think how much work that would be.
http://election.princeton.edu/perverse-media-incentives-cillizza-2nov2012.php
= new reply since forum marked as read
In fact, there are a few conspirators under my bed, too.
I have no idea why the media promotes this horse race shit. But, one thing's for sure. It is not so that Romney, or anybody else can (so-called) steal the election. I suspect that the tied contest is yet another meme that gets spewed out, just like the stolen election screeching.
Ignore the screeching and look at the data.
And Occam's razor also says that it is the simplest theory consistent with all the data.
That's one part that the conspiracy theorists ignore. They cherry pick their data, ignoring the disconfirming points. Another thing they do is anomaly hunt. Any anomalous thing -- many of which are no such thing -- are touted as evidence for the conspiracy.
It's really weird how they think.
Thanks for the response.
I say to assume your concerns are all true, and maybe even worst than that Tagg Romney has some controlling interest in one of the major voting machine companies. Example: That there are maybe a couple dozen states where the people responsible for ensuring votes get counted are Corporazi, er, Republican, operatives.
What are we to do in the face of the fact these people are waging civil war against our democracy?
We must flood the poles. We have to literally swamp their efforts to usurp our collective will.
Where they can steal a percent here and a point or two there, we must get 5-8-10% more bodies to the poles, ignore (or report to the police — crying "voter intimidation"
Corporazi brownshirts like those <i>True the Vote</i> thugs, and stand in lines for as many hours as it takes to cast your ballots.
We have to eclipse the 2008 turnout, and erase the shame of the 2010 turnout.
In unity, strength. We control our destiny here.
