ShivaX
4591
Actual proof that “Ex-President” used to be the common vernacular.
Longtime reporter/editor/writer at Foreign Policy, POLITICO, and lately the New York Times Blake Hounshell apparently ended his own life yesterday morning.
Your US example makes sense - Biden was not sworn in as president for several months.
Thrag
4595
CNN white house correspondent wonders why Biden didn’t bring up the classified docs when talking to Al Sharpton during MLK jr. day.
KevinC
4596
She’s angling for a New York Times gig!
Definitely. Haberman will have to retire sooner or later.
Timex
4600
How far off was silver in this past election? Pretty far off?
DoubleG
4602
They weren’t bad, though they hedged a bit. They predicted a small Republican win but gave the Democrats a 40% chance of holding the Senate.
Kyrios
4603
Silver is a bit frustrating because (1) he has absolutely become what he railed against a decade ago in terms of his punditry, but (2) the 538 predictions/odds have pretty consistently been the best of the big non-partisan predictors: they had Trump losing in 2016 but had the highest odds for him of the non-partisans and some very prescient articles on This is How it Could Happen, were pretty good in 2018, had 2020 correct with high confidence and in the right ways, and were closer than most for 2022 even when they were arguably rating some R-affiliated pollsters too highly. The original thesis of “if we take all of this data and weigh it with a formula, it will give you the best idea of where things stand” frankly has been proven correct and then some.
The polling/predicting, if anything, has been compromised by more weight and discussion of models that add in/give more credence to punditry/momentum/vibes/etc. A decade and a half into the 538 era, it’s also both a subject of manipulation and a big enough presence to influence election strategy, which compromises the original mission. It may well be at the stage where it’s better for society for it to go away just because it’s such a focus, but the methods and changes in approach that it spawned aren’t going away regardless.
It doesn’t help that Nate is a pretty big ass on Twitter at times, was very outspoken about some quite privileged positions (to say the least) on pandemic policy, and doesn’t seem amazing to work with/for based on staff turnover and stories.
Timex
4604
Then what is this talking about?
Questions over FiveThirtyEight’s future come as Silver faces public criticism for his reliance on polls that inaccurately predicted a “red wave” in the midterm elections.
“There’s no question in my mind that FiveThirtyEight was used by partisan sources to create a false impression of the election and that Nate was aware this was happening and by not addressing it he ended up contributing to misleading the American people about what was happening in the election,“ Democratic strategist and former ABC News producer Simon Rosenberg told Confider. “This is an existential threat to FiveThirtyEight. If he refuses to make significant reforms and changes the political elite should move on to other sources to get information about polling.”
DoubleG
4605
I don’t know. I don’t like Nate Silver and would be the first to criticize him, but the site consistently said a Democratic victory was possible.
That quote’s from a Democratic strategist, and if that was my job, I would also probably disparage popular aggregators that include Republican-funded polls instead of exclusively using my own party’s polling.
Yes, this is my take on him as well. I think his leaning into (bad) punditry fills two needs: first, he needs content for the web site to make it valuable, and second, he needs to be the smartest person in the room.
People don’t know what to do with these predictions. If you see a prediction of “75% chance of X, 25% chance of Y”, and then Y happens, your natural reaction is to think the prediction didn’t do you any good at all; that it predicted the wrong outcome, and that you could simply have dispensed with it entirely. You were better off without it.
Seems like DirectTV have booted NewsMax from their lineup?
I think this is standard hardline carriage-fee negotiations between a TV provider and a network. But Newsmax is trying to call it censorship or deplatforming or cancel-culture-gone-mad to up the pressure on DirectTV.
Menzo
4609
No, in this case I think it’s actual cancel culture. But I’m OK with it.
