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The New York Times Is Eliminating Its Public Editor Role

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Re: The New York Times Is Eliminating Its Public Editor Role

#71

Post by Karunamon »

pg314 wrote: post #22
PhantomGremlin wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

ended up in a bubble? Yes they did. They know it. And they don't really give a fuck. After the election they did some public navel gazing about what went wrong. To prove they were serious, there was even an editorial about The Future of the Times . So I wrote to Ms Spayd. I challenged her, at the next meeting of journalists and editors, to say something like: "show of hands, who voted for Donald Trump for president".…

> So how can the Times ever begin to understand the 46% of the country who are the deplorables who voted for Trump? You don't need to be a member of a certain group to be able to report on them. E.g. you don't need to be terminally ill to report on people that are terminally ill, or member of the KKK to report on them.

You do when that group is half of the population give or take a few percent, and you want to pretend to be anything resembling objective. Stances on terminal illness and the KKK are easy to take and uncontroversial - especially when both of those groups are tiny.

(And let's not even get into how loaded of a comparison you just made...)

Re: The New York Times Is Eliminating Its Public Editor Role

#72

Post by lettergram »

matt4077 wrote: post #49
lettergram wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The system I've been working on actually predicted a Trump win: https://projectpiglet.com/ The problem was so many people just hated Clinton, and at the time, Trump had more people positive about him.

Then you should be very sceptical of your system. "History proves me right" works for Fidel Castro, but not for lottery winners.

I am fairly skeptical, but given it's been pretty consistently accurate, I'm becoming more confident.

I look at net Promotor Score on any type of entity. It's predicted the rise of Bicoin, and various other currencies, but it's not always perfect. For example, it didn't predict a brexit.

It could just be I don't have enough data. It's a work in progress.

Re: The New York Times Is Eliminating Its Public Editor Role

#73

Post by joshuamorton »

untog wrote: post #69
cocktailpeanuts wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is it not what I describe? You just described exactly what I described. Everyone was wondering (both pro-trump and anti-trump) where the "90%" came from. Because it was pretty clear the race was not that obvious. People keep saying nobody saw it coming, but that's their emotion speaking. People just didn't want Donald Trump to win because they thought he's a joke, but objectively speaking people knew clearly that…

You said: "The front page had this interactive realtime story of how Hillary is supposedly winning" I said: "it absolutely wasn't showing false data that indicated Hillary was winning when she was not" They're pretty clearly contradictory. That data, at no point, showed Hillary "supposedly" anything. You're making my point about readers not understanding statistical probabilities. 90% doesn't mean she's winning. It m…

Polling data wasn't even wrong. It was almost spot on in measuring popular vote totals. The mistakes were solely with some state level polls (and really not even mistakes, just high uncertainties) and poll aggregators.

Really, I think most of the incorrect predictions came from one error: assuming a higher level of independence between state results than is actually the case. Nate Silver/538 talk about this some, and they gave Trump the highest (~30%) chance of winning on election day.

Re: The New York Times Is Eliminating Its Public Editor Role

#74

Post by thinnerlizzy »

cocktailpeanuts wrote: post #65
untog wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The front page had this interactive realtime story of how Hillary is supposedly winning by overwhelming margin, when it was very apparent that that's opposite of the truth. I remember that interactive story. It was not what you describe. It was showing Hillary's chances of winning throughout the evening - she started at 90% or so, based on the polling averages they'd been running on a regular basis throughout the e…

How is it not what I describe? You just described exactly what I described. Everyone was wondering (both pro-trump and anti-trump) where the "90%" came from. Because it was pretty clear the race was not that obvious. People keep saying nobody saw it coming, but that's their emotion speaking. People just didn't want Donald Trump to win because they thought he's a joke, but objectively speaking people knew clearly that…

I don't recall the New York Times reporting a 90% chance of victory on election day. I recall her chances according to the Times decreasing several percentage points (down to the high 70s IIRC) during the last few days leading up to the election. If the interactive graphic you are talking about was the 'paths to victory' graphic that I'm thinking of, it probably reflected the most current polling data - which was probably already obsolete - that they had on hand at the moment.

My own observation during the days leading up to the election was that her chances of winning were decreasing at a faster rate than could be reported with reliable polling data, though I still believed that she'd eke out a win.

Re: The New York Times Is Eliminating Its Public Editor Role

#75

Post by darkerside »

cocktailpeanuts wrote: post #65
untog wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The front page had this interactive realtime story of how Hillary is supposedly winning by overwhelming margin, when it was very apparent that that's opposite of the truth. I remember that interactive story. It was not what you describe. It was showing Hillary's chances of winning throughout the evening - she started at 90% or so, based on the polling averages they'd been running on a regular basis throughout the e…

How is it not what I describe? You just described exactly what I described. Everyone was wondering (both pro-trump and anti-trump) where the "90%" came from. Because it was pretty clear the race was not that obvious. People keep saying nobody saw it coming, but that's their emotion speaking. People just didn't want Donald Trump to win because they thought he's a joke, but objectively speaking people knew clearly that…

> Because it was pretty clear the race was not that obvious.

I think that's where the confusion lies. The majority of published polls and pundit calculations pointed that way, and it was earnestly interpreted by well-intentioned journalists that 90% of polls meant 90% probability. Perhaps I'm cutting a little too deep with Hanlon's razor here, but I think systemic biases are a more likely culprit than some kind of media conspiracy.

Re: The New York Times Is Eliminating Its Public Editor Role

#76

Post by rhino369 »

mtberatwork wrote: post #39
bitwize wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No one is expecting liberal journalists to turn conservative. What we need is for liberal journalists to take conservatives seriously. If the liberals really are right (and I think they're righter than the right) then they should be able to address conservative grievances within their own framework. But in recent years, they haven't been. Encouraged by Obama's success, the liberal establishment has determined that co…

> and could benefit by hiring a conservative just to function as devil's advocate They do hire conservatives (Brooks, Douthat, Kristol, etc) and they just hired Bret Stephens. > (like Fox News did with Alan Colmes) You make it sound as if Alan Colmes, during his time at Fox, was there to give an equal voice to the liberal side of an issue, but in reality he was just marginalized to be the token "lefty" punching bag f…

One issue is that the token conservatives brought on for intellectual diversity are almost always the same sort of conservative. The elitist think thank crowd that formed the Never Trump movement. It's pretty clear that outside of Northern Virginia, those guys don't represent mainstream conservative thought.

But even putting someone like Douthat on the editorial side doesn't impact the news side of the Times.

I think the NYTimes does a pretty decent job, but there is no question they missed the story of 2016 because their news reporters are all inside the bubble.

Agree that Colmes was an unglorified punching bag. Fox is the wrong entity to imitate.

Re: The New York Times Is Eliminating Its Public Editor Role

#77

Post by cocktailpeanuts »

untog wrote: post #69
cocktailpeanuts wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is it not what I describe? You just described exactly what I described. Everyone was wondering (both pro-trump and anti-trump) where the "90%" came from. Because it was pretty clear the race was not that obvious. People keep saying nobody saw it coming, but that's their emotion speaking. People just didn't want Donald Trump to win because they thought he's a joke, but objectively speaking people knew clearly that…

You said: "The front page had this interactive realtime story of how Hillary is supposedly winning" I said: "it absolutely wasn't showing false data that indicated Hillary was winning when she was not" They're pretty clearly contradictory. That data, at no point, showed Hillary "supposedly" anything. You're making my point about readers not understanding statistical probabilities. 90% doesn't mean she's winning. It m…

I see what you're saying now.

But I don't think you got my point either. The detail doesn't matter. Whatever that number was about, it was pretty clear that 90% was not the right number, I'm not even pro-trump and I was confused, imagine what others thought.

Also, it is not ok to be irresponsible just because you're using a "scientific method". This is what cigarette companies did to fund research that "prove" that smoking is healthy. And this happens increasingly more, because writing polarizing articles generate more shares and page views and money.

Lastly, I am not trying to talk politics here, and it's not even just about NYT. Nowadays for a lot of writers it's all about generating more page views. Again, I'm fine with it (even the "fake news" viral sites), but I was pointing out that it is hypocritical to claim that you're "the truth", when you do things that are biased.

Re: The New York Times Is Eliminating Its Public Editor Role

#78

Post by soundwave106 »

humanrebar wrote: post #43
selllikesybok wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who has 65k cash to toss around like that? :) If the doctor can't effectively predict what benefit said scan or pill regimen will provide (50% chance of 10 year life extension,90% chance of 2 years...? not even getting into quality of life), how does the consumer make informed choices? This approach devolves to if you have money you get care, if not, you don't, regardless of need or efficacy. Similar to any other mar…

> Who has 65k cash to toss around like that? :) Most people who are paying that much for pills are retired middle class people trying to stay healthy into old age. Or alive for a few more years. But people should be able to pay for typical levels of healthcare. The fact that this isn't true is a question of economics and employment opportunities, not entirely problem with the "healthcare system" itself. > There or so…

One issue here is that health care can get really complicated really fast. Which makes it quite a bit more difficult for many consumers to make an informed decision.

Because health care is complicated, in an idea world, there would be a layer to distill all of the complicated scientific information into simpler, scientifically sound recommendations. In theory, this is what your doctor should do. In practice, this system is currently broken in the United States. It is easy to demonstrate cases of over-treatment in the current medical system. (http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/05/11/overkill-atul-g...).

If the consumer was paying for everything with full price visibility, would this change? I'm not sure. The problem here is a large amount of people would have no idea whether the prescription / test the doctor is requesting is worthwhile or bunk.

In fact, I think some of the over-treatment today is by "by patient request". One reason given for why doctors write antibiotic prescriptions for viral infections (which as we should know is scientifically useless and may in fact be harmful due to the potential of allergic reactions) is to make patients feel better by making it seem like something is being done. (http://ideas.time.com/2012/04/16/why-doctors-uselessly-presc...). The same probably goes for even more expensive cases (MRIs for most back pain cases, for instance).

Think of what we see in the "alternative medicine" market. There may be a few hidden undiscovered gems in that field, but in the majority of cases people pay sometimes a ton of money for what ends up being a rather expensive placebo effect at best (or harmful snake oil at worst). All of this both because medical science is difficult to understand (where glossy marketing is easy to understand), and also because in many cases medical science has unsatisfactory answers for people desperate to be healed.

I'm not saying that knowledgeable bureaucrats are completely correct (ideally the doctor and patient are making the informed decisions together, not the bureaucrats) but I can't see not having some layer that aims to eliminate the current perverse incentives in the system.

Re: The New York Times Is Eliminating Its Public Editor Role

#79

Post by humanrebar »

makmanalp wrote: post #64
humanrebar wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Who has 65k cash to toss around like that? :) Most people who are paying that much for pills are retired middle class people trying to stay healthy into old age. Or alive for a few more years. But people should be able to pay for typical levels of healthcare. The fact that this isn't true is a question of economics and employment opportunities, not entirely problem with the "healthcare system" itself. > There or so…

> Most people who are paying that much for pills are retired middle class people trying to stay healthy into old age What of all the people whose lifespan is cut early by disease? Getting cancer or some other serious disease at a young age just due to sheer dumb luck is less common, but still quite prevalent. Or let's just think about traffic accidents? It's just preposterous to me that people should ever have to wor…

> What of all the people whose lifespan is cut early by disease?

Actual insurance and government welfare programs are for things you can't otherwise save for. Let's not burn straw men, here.

> If you're looking for bloat and overspending, why not slash the defense budget instead?

That's fine, too. But paying for the healthcare of an entire country is far more expensive than even U.S. defense spending. And cutting defense spending doesn't address the structural problems of having party A pay party B to pay party C to produce good health in party D.

> The accusation was that there were "death panels" that would decide whether it's "worth it" to put all that money into that one dying patient, or whether it's better spent elsewhere.

I want the patient to be able to decide (for instance) that another year on the lam from the reaper isn't worth the high price tag. That only really works if the savings goes to what they want: family, charity, community, etc. and not back into the general fund of a government or corporation.

Re: The New York Times Is Eliminating Its Public Editor Role

#80

Post by tmaly »

joshuamorton wrote: post #73
untog wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You said: "The front page had this interactive realtime story of how Hillary is supposedly winning" I said: "it absolutely wasn't showing false data that indicated Hillary was winning when she was not" They're pretty clearly contradictory. That data, at no point, showed Hillary "supposedly" anything. You're making my point about readers not understanding statistical probabilities. 90% doesn't mean she's winning. It m…

Polling data wasn't even wrong. It was almost spot on in measuring popular vote totals. The mistakes were solely with some state level polls (and really not even mistakes, just high uncertainties) and poll aggregators. Really, I think most of the incorrect predictions came from one error: assuming a higher level of independence between state results than is actually the case. Nate Silver/538 talk about this some, and…

Polling can be incredibly hard. If you ask the wrong type of questions you introduce a bias. If you ask the wrong types of people you have sampling error.

All of these things could have occurred, but something definitely was wrong with the polling data. Nate Silver just like NYT gave Hillary a 90% chance at the start of the day, and this was all based on using the polling data as inputs to their models.

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