Author Archive
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Swing States Project
The future of factchecking
November 29, 2012 02:50 PMAs journalists close the books on 2012 and look forward to coverage of a second Obama administration, one important question is where the factchecking movement goes from here. The general election campaign was unquestionably the most intensively factchecked in history.... Continue reading
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Swing States Project
Predictable in retrospect
November 13, 2012 02:55 PMThe media has undergone a strange change of mindset. Immediately before last Tuesday's election, many reporters and commentators ignored or dismissed the consensus among forecasters and betting markets that President Obama was very likely to defeat Mitt... Continue reading
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Swing States Project
How to cover the presidential results
November 7, 2012 01:18 PMOne of the most fascinating parts of the aftermath of an election is the construction of post-hoc narratives to "explain" the results. There’s plenty of Web traffic to be gained by meeting the public's demand for these sorts of tidy... Continue reading
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Swing States Project
Pundits versus probabilities
October 30, 2012 02:50 PMWho will win the presidential election next Tuesday? Until recently, the market for analysis of questions like these has been dominated by mainstream political reporters and commentators. Their style leans heavily on qualitative impressions and hazy... Continue reading
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Swing States Project
The momentum behind a misleading narrative
October 26, 2012 11:00 AMOn Thursday night, Politico beat a retreat in the great momentum debate of 2012. The site's Glenn Thrush and Jennifer Epstein opened a big state-of-the-campaign story with this—“In the past 10 days, Mitt Romney’s... Continue reading
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Swing States Project
All good debate coverage is local?
October 16, 2012 11:00 AMNEW HAMPSHIRE — If you cover politics for a national publication, the story of the debates so far has been President Obama's supposedly lackluster performance and Vice President Biden's over-the-top facial expressions. But are outside-the-Beltway journalists so easily sidetracked into... Continue reading
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Swing States Project
Enabling the jobs report conspiracy theory
October 8, 2012 12:15 PMNEW HAMPSHIRE — Media ethics pop quiz: When conspiracy theories started circulating on Twitter claiming that Friday's jobs report had been politically manipulated, what should reporters have done? (a) Avoid covering a baseless and unsubstantiated charge and focus instead on... Continue reading
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Swing States Project
Breaking the pack journalism paradigm
October 3, 2012 11:10 AMNEW HAMPSHIRE — As tonight's presidential debate approaches, the chattering classes are pondering whether it will change the dynamics of the campaign, which currently favor President Obama over Mitt Romney. The odds are that it will not—most... Continue reading
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Swing States Project
Will Obama really ‘break the fever’?
September 24, 2012 11:10 AMWith the media focused on the horse race (and Mitt Romney's ongoing tactical miscues), the claims by President Obama and his allies that his re-election would "break the fever" or pop "the blister" of steadfast GOP... Continue reading
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Swing States Project
Jumping the gun on the Romney ‘47%’ video
September 18, 2012 01:15 PMNEW HAMPSHIRE — Yesterday, Mother Jones released a secretly-recorded video of Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney making the following comments at a May 17 fundraiser in Florida: There are 47 percent of the people who will vote for... Continue reading
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Swing States Project
When factcheckers get trigger-happy
September 6, 2012 04:10 PMIs there such a thing as too much factchecking? Factcheck.org described former President Bill Clinton's speech to the Democratic convention Wednesday evening as a "fact-checker's nightmare" in part because, "with few exceptions… his stats checked out." Rather than... Continue reading
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Swing States Project
Ignored factchecks and the media’s crisis of confidence
August 30, 2012 11:05 AMCan the media stop politicians from misleading the public? That's the question on the minds of many journalists and commentators after Paul Ryan's speech last night at the Republican National Convention, which continued the Romney... Continue reading
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Swing States Project
Conventions: A great learning opportunity for voters
August 28, 2012 11:00 AMEvery four years, the two presidential candidates do battle in a series of high-stakes televised events that could shape the outcome of the campaign. They also take part in some highly scripted programming where little real news is made and... Continue reading
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Swing States Project
Another factchecking fiasco
August 7, 2012 01:00 PMA week ago, The Huffington Post's Sam Stein and Ryan Grim published an article repeating Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's claim that GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney hadn't paid taxes for ten years. Though Reid provided no evidence... Continue reading
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Swing States Project
The Gore-ing of Mitt Romney
August 2, 2012 02:58 PMThe profane confrontation between one of Mitt Romney’s press aides and reporters at the end of the presumptive GOP nominee’s difficult overseas trip has brought new attention to the way the 2012 race is being covered in the... Continue reading
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Swing States Project
The press botches the tax debate—again
July 26, 2012 04:54 PMNEW HAMPSHIRE — Yesterday, the Senate held symbolic votes on a pair of high-profile tax bills with important implications for the November election. Senators narrowly rejected a Republican-backed extension of all the Bush-era tax cuts in favor of a Democratic... Continue reading
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Swing States Project
Unanswered questions in the Romney/Bain controversy
July 17, 2012 12:15 PMNEW HAMPSHIRE — Fact-checkers have played a key role in the controversy over Mitt Romney's role in outsourcing at Bain Capital, but the way the debate has played out reveals the limitations of the genre. First, fact-checks sometimes help create... Continue reading
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Swing States Project
Arbitrating the dispute over Romney’s history at Bain
July 9, 2012 03:00 PMNEW HAMPSHIRE — Last Tuesday, the Obama campaign released a new ad here and in eight other swing states that distorts the facts in a Washington Post story to implicate Mitt Romney in outsourcing... Continue reading
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Swing States Project
‘Turning point’ claims ‘in tatters’
June 29, 2012 04:26 PMYesterday’s Supreme Court decision upholding most of the Affordable Care Act has vast implications for health policy in this country and will affect millions of people’s lives. Much of the early coverage, fortunately, reflected those substantive concerns. <a... Continue reading
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Swing States Project
Why Romney looks more ‘confident’ in reporters’ eyes
June 19, 2012 12:05 PMNEW HAMPSHIRE — One of the most frequent problems with campaign reporting is the way that journalists construct candidate-centric narratives that coincide with the ups and downs of the race. We've seen this pattern recur with Mitt Romney in the... Continue reading
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