Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The New York Times Is Eliminating Its Public Editor Role

huffingtonpost.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

101–110 of 110 posts

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

#101

Post by matt4077 »

cocktailpeanuts wrote: post #52

Before I start, Disclosure: I'm neither a Trump or a Hillary supporter and I don't mean the following to be political. I'm just very dissatisfied with the sad reality of how I cannot trust anything online anymore. For me, the moment all my trust in NYT died was the election day. The front page had this interactive realtime story of how Hillary is supposedly winning by overwhelming margin, when it was very apparent th…

The polls were off, and/or the race moved in last few days. If you can't see the difference between a statistical model's prediction and a journalist's factual claims, you're unlikely to find the sort of "objectivity" you're looking for.

And, fwiw, your sort of political "objectivity" just doesn't exist. What you want is the sort of fake equivalence as in "Yesterday, 10 people died in an earthquake in Northern Italy, according to local accounts. But Jeff from Kansas writes on Twitter that there was no earthquake and the cause of death was the LHC's creation of a black hole. What's the truth? You decide! Back after this...".

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

#102

Post by dragonwriter »

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…

> Everyone was wondering (both pro-trump and anti-trump) where the "90%" came from

No, they weren't, because everyone paying even a little bit of attention to the issues around aggregating polling numbers new that 538 had already dissected the problem with that long before the election—most prediction models were falsely assuming that variations in outcome from.the poll averages between different states were independent events when history shows that such deviations are strongly correlated. Which is why 538, working with essentially the same polling data as everyone else, had Clinton's chance of losing much higher than NYT and some other predictors.

> To me, THAT's the ultimate "fake news".

Predictions of the future are (and were presented as) analysis, not news. To be "fake news", it has to firsr pretend to be news, that is, reports of things that have occurred.

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

#103

Post by cocktailpeanuts »

tqi wrote: post #100
cocktailpeanuts wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 s…

You seem very confident that "90% was not the right number", and I'm curious how you reached that conclusion. Do you have research that indicates the odds were actually way different, or does it just that it feel incorrect? If I win the lottery, is it misleading for people to state that my odds of winning were one in a million?

Dude, that guy who was supposed to lose by 90% chance actually DID win. And you're telling me to prove this by showing you some research result?

It's not misleading to say your odds of winning the lottery is one in a million because it IS one in a million, mathematically. NYT saying Hillary would win by 90% chance is NOT mathematics. Do you really think your analogy was adequate?

My point was that people believe statistics, just like you believe that because NYT did it, it would be scientific and you should believe it. But that's where the danger lies. And an influential publication such as NYT should be ashamed of themselves for misleading people by trivializing things down to just a percentage and feeding it to the world, in realtime.

I'm sure a lot of Trump fans who saw that poll on NYT that morning who didn't care for voting decided to go vote.

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

#104

Post by PhantomGremlin »

mtberatwork wrote: post #47
PhantomGremlin wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't follow the Times that closely any more, but from what I can see David Brooks is their analog to what Alan Colmes was to Fox. Somewhat like a court jester. But even Brooks knew enough to publicly declare that he wouldn't vote for Trump, even though Trump's political views probably aligned more closely to Brooks than Hillary's views did.

> I don't follow the Times that closely any more, but from what I can see David Brooks is their analog to what Alan Colmes was to Fox. Somewhat like a court jester. Then I'm not sure why you have such a strong opinion of the NY Times? Also, no one at the paper is using Brooks as a token conservative in the same manner as what Colmes was for Hannity. Brooks even appears weekly on PBS. > But even Brooks knew enough to…

Political views aren't binary.

Not that Trump is a true conservative, but ...

Our current political system more or less forces binary choices.

E.g. take the case of the Supreme Court. Unequivocally Gorsuch is a much more conservative appointee than Garland would have been.

Were Trump's negatives so high (in Brooks' eyes) that Brooks was willing to accept perhaps two or three liberal court appointees from Hillary rather than live with Trump's baggage? Apparently so!

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

#105

Post by cocktailpeanuts »

matt4077 wrote: post #101
cocktailpeanuts wrote: post #52

Before I start, Disclosure: I'm neither a Trump or a Hillary supporter and I don't mean the following to be political. I'm just very dissatisfied with the sad reality of how I cannot trust anything online anymore. For me, the moment all my trust in NYT died was the election day. The front page had this interactive realtime story of how Hillary is supposedly winning by overwhelming margin, when it was very apparent th…

The polls were off, and/or the race moved in last few days. If you can't see the difference between a statistical model's prediction and a journalist's factual claims, you're unlikely to find the sort of "objectivity" you're looking for. And, fwiw, your sort of political "objectivity" just doesn't exist. What you want is the sort of fake equivalence as in "Yesterday, 10 people died in an earthquake in Northern Italy,…

Just because something doesn't exist, doesn't mean you shouldn't strive for it, especially if you're in journalism.

It's like saying "Nobody is perfectly ethical. So trying to be ethical is just being fake."

Also you are using a funny example to make a point that's not relevant to this instance. That has nothing to do with news organizations siding with certain political party and pretending to be unbiased.

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

#106

Post by untog »

cocktailpeanuts wrote: post #103
tqi wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You seem very confident that "90% was not the right number", and I'm curious how you reached that conclusion. Do you have research that indicates the odds were actually way different, or does it just that it feel incorrect? If I win the lottery, is it misleading for people to state that my odds of winning were one in a million?

Dude, that guy who was supposed to lose by 90% chance actually DID win. And you're telling me to prove this by showing you some research result? It's not misleading to say your odds of winning the lottery is one in a million because it IS one in a million, mathematically. NYT saying Hillary would win by 90% chance is NOT mathematics. Do you really think your analogy was adequate? My point was that people believe stat…

> Dude, that guy who was supposed to lose by 90% chance actually DID win.

Again, that's how probabilities work. Unless the prediction was 100% Hillary win then a Trump win is possible. This isn't a new concept, it happens in sports all the time. Odds are offered for betting, and every now and then there are upsets. That doesn't mean the odds are nonsense.

What's the alternative? News organisations never even attempt to gauge whose campaign is more popular? I don't think that's realistic.

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

#107

Post by aladoc99 »

coredog64 wrote: post #41
specialist wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Insurer's response to ACA reminds me of a Frank & Ernest comic, which I can't find right now, sorry: Two USPS workers. Package label says "Do not bend, fold, mutilate." One says to the other "Doesn't say anything about crumple!" Har har har. --- I had high hopes for ACA. I believed the 15% medical loss ratio was the poison pill that would eventually drive insurers out of business, and therefore lead to Medicare for A…

HHS doesn't actually pay medical costs with that 95%. They take a 5% cut for their own overhead and then turn around and pay a group of private insurance companies to provide coverage with the rest.

I think the 5% includes the administrative cost of the third-party administrators as well as HHS itself. The 95% is payments to hospitals, doctors, pharmacies, etc.

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

#108

Post by aladoc99 »

specialist wrote: post #27
humanrebar wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd feel more able to agree with you if the NYT didn't carry water for some whoppers ("you can keep you doctor", "insurers will compete for your business", etc.) back when the ACA was passed in the first place.

Insurer's response to ACA reminds me of a Frank & Ernest comic, which I can't find right now, sorry: Two USPS workers. Package label says "Do not bend, fold, mutilate." One says to the other "Doesn't say anything about crumple!" Har har har. --- I had high hopes for ACA. I believed the 15% medical loss ratio was the poison pill that would eventually drive insurers out of business, and therefore lead to Medicare for A…

It's important to recognize that capitation provides a powerful economic incentive to provide as little care as possible. Every pill, X-ray, MRI, or surgery comes straight out of the insurer's bottom line. You'd like to see an allergist/rheumatologist/orthopedic surgeon? How about the thirty-third of Nevember? Instead you can talk to a high-schooler in another country with a wellness script.

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

#109

Post by tmaly »

joshuamorton wrote: post #85
tmaly wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

>Nate Silver just like NYT gave Hillary a 90% chance at the start of the day He didn't though, and that's my point. What you're saying is factually untrue, they haven't updated their prediction since election morning, and it sits at 71% Clinton [0] (Updated Nov. 8, 2016). If you don't believe that, then you can take a look at archive.is, which provides timestampped copies. This [4] is an archived copy from well befor…

I stand corrected, it was 71.4% The 90% from NYT stood out in my mind.

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

#110

Post by tqi »

cocktailpeanuts wrote: post #103
tqi wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You seem very confident that "90% was not the right number", and I'm curious how you reached that conclusion. Do you have research that indicates the odds were actually way different, or does it just that it feel incorrect? If I win the lottery, is it misleading for people to state that my odds of winning were one in a million?

Dude, that guy who was supposed to lose by 90% chance actually DID win. And you're telling me to prove this by showing you some research result? It's not misleading to say your odds of winning the lottery is one in a million because it IS one in a million, mathematically. NYT saying Hillary would win by 90% chance is NOT mathematics. Do you really think your analogy was adequate? My point was that people believe stat…

> Dude, that guy who was supposed to lose by 90% chance actually DID win. And you're telling me to prove this by showing you some research result?

Actually yes, that is exactly what I'd like to find out more about. I'm asking why you are so sure that the NYT and other media publication odds were so wrong? Is it just that he won, therefore his odds must have been better than 10%? Most betting markets (which the HN set seems to put a lot of faith in) had Clinton as a 80ish % favorite (http://www.cnbc.com/2016/11/07/betting-sites-see-record-wage...), do you think they were a product of a misled public?

Post reply on HN