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

Nate Silver Went Against the Grain for Some at The Times

publiceditor.blogs.nytimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 94 posts

Re: Nate Silver Went Against the Grain for Some at The Times

#71

Post by eieio »

thaumaturgy wrote: post #14

I was skeptical when Nate Silver first got picked up by the NY Times; I was an avid follower of his site when it was independent (during campaign years). But, the Times really did a great job of supporting his work. The infographics and visualizations and interactive graphs that they produced -- typically with D3.js, which was cool to see -- were really second-to-none. (Who can forget http://www.nytimes.com/interacti…

The graphic you linked is absolutely gorgeous. I had(sadly) forgotten about it and I appreciate you linking it again :)

As a long time Nate follower, he is very good at posting basic graphs alongside very strong explanations of said graphs. However, he has very little skill when it comes to more creative, targeted, unique graphs like the one that you linked.

However, he's a smart dude and ESPN has plenty of resources. I'm sure he'll be fine.

Re: Nate Silver Went Against the Grain for Some at The Times

#72

Post by foobarqux »

danso wrote: post #49
nknighthb wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Public editor" is basically a particular incarnation of ombudsman. One thing common to ombudsman roles is that they're powerless and routinely ignored. They're the equivalent of "We are taking this seriously.", a meaningless gesture designed to distract and obfuscate. The people who take such roles are simply pawns.

Sorry, but I have to call this out as blanket, misguided and uninformed criticism. I've been a frequent reader of the Times ombudsman in the 10 or so years since it was put in place after the Jayson Blair scandal. Sullivan has been the most incisive, most responsive of all the ombudsmen so far. You're right that the position is toothless...she has no ability to fire people or allocate resources of her own. What she d…

> What she does have in terms of power is getting to say whatever she wants, about anyone at the Times, without fear of being fired.

Do you really think a corporation would allow serious injury to come to its reputation especially when its reputation is critical to its business?

Do you think if the public editor starting leveling serious critique at the NYT in the vein of FAIR, Media Lens or Chomsky they would retain their position? Do you think the NYT would ever appoint members of those organizations as public editors?

Re: Nate Silver Went Against the Grain for Some at The Times

#73

Post by jaibot »

diego_moita wrote: post #45

I just read Silver's book "The Signal and the Noise" and I think this makes a lot of sense. Silver never was a political junkie, as all the NYT political journalists are. He was drawn into political statistical analysis almost by accident: he saw how "noisy" the political analysis were and knew that he could do something about it. In the book he clearly shows that baseball and poker are a lot more interesting subject…

Fivethirtyeight has its origins on the very-political DailyKos, where he wrote political statistical analysis under the name "poblano".

Re: Nate Silver Went Against the Grain for Some at The Times

#74

Post by obstacle1 »

halo wrote: post #60
chasing wrote: post #4

I feel like traditional pundits got pissed off because he kept wrecking their narratives. And he upset them further by turning political prognostication into something understandable by common readers -- instead of something only pointy-hatted political wizards could divine with the right amount of eye-of-newt and other secret ingredients. Anyway: The New York Times should've worked harder to keep him. They should fi…

>And he upset them further by turning political prognostication into something understandable by common readers -- instead of something only pointy-hatted political wizards could divine with the right amount of eye-of-newt and other secret ingredients. How did he do that? If anything, I would argue the opposite, because his model is proprietary and his explanations (presumably deliberately) vague. 538 is awash with n…

I feel like we followed a different 538...

Silver basically said "here are the exact probabilities we have calculated for these races and here is the gist of our methodology [1]". If that doesn't cut through the rhetoric, opinion, and 'expert analysis' that plagues MSM political coverage, I don't know what else possibly could.

[1] - http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/methodology/

Re: Nate Silver Went Against the Grain for Some at The Times

#75

Post by obstacle1 »

taurath wrote: post #64
the_watcher wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure if they could compete. Disney/ESPN is as deep pocketed, lets him get closer to sports (don't forget, he made his name originally as the guy who created PECOTA), and gives him as much or more freedom as the NYT. Also, I don't doubt he looked at what ESPN has allowed Grantland to become under Bill Simmons.

I think he took the easy path. Probably a lot more money, but also he gets to work on sports predictions instead of angering relatively powerful people.

It's up to him to take whichever path he chooses, and he's not morally better or worse for choosing any over another.

Now that MSM has seen what's possible when logic and statistical analysis is applied to journalism, I'd imagine they'll be able to find a team to reproduce or at least mimic what Silver did in 2012.

Re: Nate Silver Went Against the Grain for Some at The Times

#76

Post by clarky07 »

wilfra wrote: post #65
clarky07 wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

slightly off topic, but it's absurd to think that Trout should have won the MVP, when Cabrera was the first Triple Crown winner in 45 years. I don't care what his WAR was.

That was the old school argument, verbatim. The new school disagrees. I don't really have an opinion but I'm pretty certain Nate agrees with the new school and would disagree strongly with your view. The new school argument is something like: the Triple Crown is an overvalued and superficial accomplishment and giving a player the MVP based solely on that is making a similar error to the scenes in Moneyball where the…

WAR is a nice stat as far as a general manager is concerned (or for fantasy), but it shouldn't decide who is the MVP. Last year Cabrera had the best hitting season anyone has had in decades. He finished 4th in WAR because of various weightings given to defense, baserunning, position played, and the bizarre and nebulous "replacement player." WAR is also sadly calculated differently by everyone, making it harder to judge as a useful metric. A single + SB is calculated as being worth more than a double. Why?

I have no problem with using WAR as something to include in the discussion, but it should not be the complete deciding factor.

Interesting side note, apparently Oakland's (famous for using sabermetrics) model for WAR had Cabrera on top - http://bleacherreport.com/articles/1570961-mike-trout-vs-mig...

Re: Nate Silver Went Against the Grain for Some at The Times

#77

Post by SkyMarshal »

foobarqux wrote: post #70
SkyMarshal wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which mailing list? There seem to be several on this topic. Also, you're probably right, there are at least three other prominent electoral college forecasters who write well, were as accurate as Nate, and who could possibly be contracted to provide the same analysis and commentary: Andrew Tannenbaum [1], Drew Linzer [2], and Sam Wang [3]. Unlike Nate, forecasting is not their primary career, but it's clearly a labor…

I think the added value that any of these forecasters, including Silver, is greatly overstated. When their accuracy is touted it is usually based on the prediction the day before the election. Is that really useful? More importantly you can get the same predictive power by just directly using recent polling data.

>When their accuracy is touted it is usually based on the prediction the day before the election.

That's not true in Nate's case at least. One of his biggest wins was debunking some of the BS "narratives" that pundits tried to spring during the election long before election day, the one about "Romney's momentum" in the final weeks of the election being the most memorable one.

Linzer also did a postmortem where he looked at, among other things, accuracy and predictive power of the model at different points in the election [1].

>Is that really useful?

An order of magnitude moreso than traditional punditry, not least because it's honest about what it can and can't tell you, namely "if the election were held today, this is the most likely outcome". No more, no less.

>More importantly you can get the same predictive power by just directly using recent polling data.

You do realize that's exactly what these guys do, right? The problem is, which polling data do you use? They provide a scientific answer to that question. Instead of cherry picking, they use it all, and weight it based on past accuracy and other factors.

[1]: http://votamatic.org/evaluating-the-forecasting-model/

Re: Nate Silver Went Against the Grain for Some at The Times

#78

Post by danso »

foobarqux wrote: post #72
danso wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry, but I have to call this out as blanket, misguided and uninformed criticism. I've been a frequent reader of the Times ombudsman in the 10 or so years since it was put in place after the Jayson Blair scandal. Sullivan has been the most incisive, most responsive of all the ombudsmen so far. You're right that the position is toothless...she has no ability to fire people or allocate resources of her own. What she d…

> What she does have in terms of power is getting to say whatever she wants, about anyone at the Times, without fear of being fired. Do you really think a corporation would allow serious injury to come to its reputation especially when its reputation is critical to its business? Do you think if the public editor starting leveling serious critique at the NYT in the vein of FAIR, Media Lens or Chomsky they would retain…

The position is generally given to a veteran journalist...Sullivan was formerly the editor of the Buffalo News. So to answer your question, she, and others before her, aren't likely to launch bombs at the NYT because like most members of a group, you have enough experience to know that controversies are more complicated underneath the surface.

So no, they're not going to hire someone who is either actively bent on discrediting the newspaper...because that would imply the newspaper execs believe that the newspaper is something to be destroyed. The position is meant to be one that improves the newspaper and its accountability to the readers. Many of her columns raise questions and doubts about Times' coverage, but the expectation is that this makes the newsroom a better place...similar to how transparency in government ostensibly makes it better in the long run.

But, on the other hand, if Sullivan became the David Souter of the Times...she would be for all intents and purposes, difficult to fire without creating a shitstorm. I'm not sure what's in the NYT's actual 4-year-contract with her, but barring her committing some journalistic crime (like plagiarism), it's not likely she can be removed for the content of her criticism.

Re: Nate Silver Went Against the Grain for Some at The Times

#79

Post by nnethercote »

stfu wrote: post #69
aclevername wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, I love the concept of proto-Krugman as much as you, but nothing really keeps Krugman at NYT. He obviously enjoys the influence that punditry brings him over flexing his academic mind.

I am not sure if this is real influence or perceived influence. But it would be extremely interesting to get his personal take on his very own path towards punditry. In my opinion becoming just another shouting voice in the wind weakened his expert opinion that he previously had through his academic credentials. Previously quoting Krugman had at least some a general appeal, but today it is making a political statemen…

Krugman has said himself that having a regular column in the most widely-read newspaper in the US is a huge source of influence.

Re: Nate Silver Went Against the Grain for Some at The Times

#80

Post by danbmil99 »

_delirium wrote: post #2

Meta comment: the institutionalized role of the "public editor" as a kind of quasi-independent internal advocate for the interests of the public has fascinated me for a while. They generally have no real power, but are given a platform and considerable independence, and are supposed to help hold newspapers to their stated interest in informing the public, with an expectation that they will be critical to some degree.…

Interesting idea, but I think public companies just don't have the culture for this level of self-criticism. The job would inevitably become corrupted somehow, subject to spin and influence from the powers within the company.

I think what should be happening is that investigative journalists in the financial sector should do a better job of finding sources within public companies, who are willing to leak information about practices and policies that are against the company's publicly stated positions, and/or are hurting shareholders, employees, the environment, and so on.

Example: why don't we see detailed leaks about NSA actions at the ISP's, carriers, and large web companies?

Post reply on HN