Brendan Nyhan

New at CJR: Addressing the asymmetry question

My new CJR column considers the argument that the pressure for partisan balance in factchecking made 2012 campaign coverage worse. Here's how it begins:

Factchecking made great strides during the 2012 campaign, but were those advances compromised by the pressure to maintain partisan balance?

Two respected Washington think tank scholars say yes. Thomas Mann of the Brookings Institution and Norman Ornstein of the American Enterprise Institute, who have recently argued that Republican extremism is to blame for many of the pathologies of Washington, told The Huffington Post’s Dan Froomkin last week that journalistic factchecking of the 2012 campaign may have been counterproductive...

Read the whole thing for more.

New at CJR: The need for better “fiscal cliff” reporting

My new column at CJR contrasts the questionable value-add for horse race journalism with the "fiscal cliff" negotiations, where good insider reporting is desperately needed. Here's how it begins:

We’ve just finished an election in which quantitative analysis provided far more accurate predictions than pundits and reporters, who frequently offered claims and analysis that were not informed by high-quality poll averages or basic political science. As a result, traditional journalists are licking their wounds and trying to re-evaluate how they can add value to campaign coverage.

Almost as quickly, however, the media’s focus has shifted from the election to the negotiations between President Obama and Congressional Republicans over how to avoid the so-called “fiscal cliff”—a topic where polls and quantitative analysis have relatively little to offer. Reporters, by contrast, have a great deal to contribute—indeed, they are the best source of information we have on the terms of the debate between the parties and the structure of the dynamics within each caucus.

For more, read the whole thing.

New at CJR: The future of fact-checking after 2012

My new column at CJR considers the future of the fact-checking movement after the 2012 campaign. Here's how it begins:

As 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. While factchecking did not eliminate falsehoods from our politics, this was always an unrealistic expectation. The relevant question is whether politicians were more careful, and voters better informed, than they would have been without factchecking. By that standard, the expansion of factchecking seems likely to have had a positive effect.

Given these successes, many observers hope the media will continue to increase the resources and attention given to factchecking in the future. In an interview with New York Times reporter Brian Stelter, for instance, NYU professor and media critic Jay Rosen suggested CNN should “declare jihad on the talking points” and prominently feature “on-air fact-checking”...

Any further expansion of factchecking—whether as the new brand of a cable news network or in other print or broadcast outlets—faces significant challenges, however.

For more, read the whole thing.

New at CJR: The dangers of hindsight bias

My new piece for CJR examines the media's propensity for hindsight bias in post-election coverage, which typically shifts from pre-election uncertainty to portraying the outcome as inevitable. Here's how it begins:

The 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 Romney and acted instead as if the candidates were neck and neck or Romney was ahead. Afterward, however, coverage of how Obama won betrayed far less uncertainty about the outcome of the election, which was frequently portrayed as a fait accompli—an inevitable consequence of how Romney’s image was defined by Obama’s early ads or overwhelmed by the President’s superior ground game.

Read the whole thing for more.

Interview on truth and misinformation in the campaign

I was interviewed today on WHYY Philadelphia's "Radio Times with Marty Moss-Coane" about "Facts, lies and the 2012 election" - summary and audio below for those who are interested:

In a presidential election where each candidate accused the other of playing lose with the facts, in the end each campaign, to some degree, was guilty of misrepresenting the truth.    As a result, what we saw was an unprecedented rise in journalists turning into fact checkers in print, online, and on television and radio.   They had to work harder and faster to keep up with the false claims, exaggerations and downright lies that shaped the political discourse.  But were their efforts effective and did they make a difference?  Did the public pay any attention and do voters even care about the facts?  And why and how can politicians get away with it?   In this hour of Radio Times we'll talk about political facts vs. lies and what we can do to demand accuracy and honesty in politics.  Our guest is Dartmouth professor of government BRENDAN NYHAN.

Listen to the mp3

New at CJR: How to cover the presidential results

My new column at CJR cautions journalists against unsupported interpretations of how and why President Obama defeated Mitt Romney in yesterday's presidential election. Here's how it begins:

One 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 explanations, but there's peril too. Reporters should be wary of telling stories about why President Obama won re-election that are not supported by the available evidence.

The most important fact for understanding what happened last night is that the fundamentals mattered. As in 2004 and 2008, the results in the presidential race corresponded closely to the forecasting models, which are largely driven by economic variables and presidential approval. In this case, a model-averaged composite forecast published before the election predicted that Obama would receive 50.3 percent of the two-party vote—quite close to his current total of 51.1 percent. In short, the state of the economy predicted a very close race that narrowly favored Obama. That's exactly what we observed.

Read the whole thing for more.

Knowledge does not guard against conspiracy theories

When the September jobs report showed that unemployment had dropped to an unexpectedly low 7.8%, former General Electric CEO Jack Welch helped launch a new conspiracy theory when he tweeted: "Unbelievable jobs numbers..these Chicago guys will do anything..can't debate so change numbers." Even though the unemployment statistics are produced by the respected and politically insulated Bureau of Labor Statistics, Welch's theory was disseminated by numerous conservative pundits and amplified by a wave of irresponsible media coverage. As we approach Election Day, it's worth taking a look back and assessing the damage.

To assess the prevalence of conspiracy theory beliefs about manipulation of the unemployment data, I contributed several questions to a YouGov poll conducted October 27-29, 2012 (margin of error: +/- 4.6%; topline data and sample demographics here). The poll was conducted before the October unemployment figures were released last Friday and thus reflects public beliefs about the September unemployment data approximately three weeks after its release on October 5.

I first asked survey respondents how accurate they believe the 7.8% unemployment figure is on a five-point scale from "Extremely accurate" to "Not at all accurate." The median response was the middle category of "Somewhat accurate," which may reflect skepticism about the way unemployment figures are calculated or a general distrust of government. However, there was a steep partisan gradient in mean responses by party. When we separate Democrats (including independents who lean Democrat), Republicans (including leaners), and true independents, we find that independents and especially Republicans are far less likely than Democrats to believe that the unemployment statistics are accurate (click graphics for larger versions):

In particular, more than 70% of respondents reported having heard about the claim that the unemployment statistics were manipulated for political reasons (21% said they had heard a lot about it, 51% said they had heard a little, and 28% said nothing at all). Half said they had first heard about the claim on television and 20% from news websites or blogs, suggesting the role played by the mainstream media in circulating the claim (only 5% said they first heard about it on a social networking site like Facebook or Twitter).

Moreover, a disturbing number of respondents endorsed the unemployment statistics conspiracy theory. When I explicitly asked respondents whether the September figure had been manipulated for political reasons or had been calculated correctly, 55% said they thought the figures had been manipulated. In this case, the partisan gradient was even steeper than on the perceived accuracy question - only 23% of Democrats thought the figures were manipulated compared with 61% of independents and a staggering 85% of Republicans: 

While we cannot determine the origins of these beliefs in a single survey, the partisan differences we observe are consistent with extensive previous research on the importance of motivated reasoning in misperceptions about politics and the difficulty of correcting misinformation among motivated reasoners.

The relationship between political knowledge and conspiracy theory belief may be especially surprising to many people. It's often assumed that more knowledgeable or educated people will be less likely to believe in false or unsupported claims, but that assumption is often tenuous. The reason is that knowledge or education can often make it easier to maintain consistency between your political views and factual beliefs.

In this case, I divide the sample into terciles of low, medium, and high political knowledge based on their answers to a ten-question battery and plot the probabilities of believing the unemployment figures are at least somewhat accurate and, conversely, that they are being manipulated for each partisan group (along with 95% confidence intervals).

Among respondents who identify as Democrats or lean toward the party, high-knowledge respondents are more likely to believe the figures are accurate and less likely to believe they are being manipulated than individuals with low or medium knowledge. For Republicans (including leaners), however, respondents with high political knowledge are paradoxically less likely to believe the unemployment statistics are accurate than those with low or medium political knowledge. In addition, high knowledge Republicans are more likely to believe the statistics are being manipulated than low knowledge respondents. (The difference between medium and high knowledge respondents is not statistically significant.)

This survey was conducted just days before a presidential election - a time when partisanship is at its peak. Nevertheless, people's willingness to endorse unproven conspiracy theories is a disturbing reminder of the damage that can be inflicted on public discourse when irresponsible claims are given widespread circulation.

(Cross-posted on Model Politics)

New at CJR: The misguided backlash against Nate Silver

My new column at CJR challenges the recent wave of misguided attacks on Nate Silver, whose estimates for the presidential race are generally consistent with other forecasting models and betting/futures markets. Here's how it begins:

Who 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 narratives. But as the audience for quantitative analysis of politics has grown, the establishment analysts have become increasingly defensive about their status.

The most well-known quantitative analyst of politics is Nate Silver, whose FiveThirtyEight blog now appears on the New York Times website. Even though his black box statistical models have not been publicly disclosed or scientifically validated, Silver’s analyses have acquired a talismanic quality among political junkies, particularly with nervous liberals who are reassured by his forecast of a likely Obama victory (current estimate: 72.9%).

Unfortunately, Silver has become the target of a vitriolic backlash from innumerate pundits whose market dominance is under threat as well as ill-informed conservative commentators who think Silver is somehow skewing the polls for partisan reasons.

Read the whole thing for more.

New at CJR: The misleading momentum narrative

I have a new column up at CJR exploring why reporters have been mistakenly reporting that Mitt Romney has "momentum" in the presidential race. Here's how it begins:

On 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 campaign has gone from Big Mo to Slow Mo”—and went on to note that “an increasing pile of polling data [is] pointing to a race that has stabilized since Barack Obama’s disastrous performance at the Oct. 3rd debate in Denver.” The “Slow Mo” take was a dramatic about-face from a story published three days earlier (not ten!), in which Thrush and his colleague Jonathan Martin contrasted “a surging Romney” with a president who “is currently on the ugly end of Big Mo.”

The new Politico story is also more accurate. The presidential race has been essentially static in the second half of October...

The notion that Romney still had “momentum” weeks after his early October gains in the polls has now been debunked by numerous commentators and academics. And while that pushback is increasingly reflected in campaign-trail accounts, it is worth taking a closer look at why coverage of Romney’s “momentum” went wrong and what it tells us about the weaknesses of campaign journalism.

For more, read the whole thing.

New at CJR: All good debate coverage is local?

My new CJR column contrasts the pathologies of national presidential debate coverage with the generally more substantive and informative coverage of two recent debates here in New Hampshire. Here's how it begins:

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 amateur theater criticism and body language analysis? Recent evidence from New Hampshire suggests the answer is no. Is there hope for citizens learning something from debate coverage after all?

Read the whole thing for more.

New at CJR: Enabling the jobs report conspiracy theory

I have a new column up at CJR assessing coverage of Friday's jobs report. Unfortunately, far too much coverage gave voice to the conspiracy theories that started circulating rather than ignoring or casting doubt on them. Here's how it begins:

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 the mainstream debate over the meaning and significance of the jobs report.

(b) Carefully cover the conspiracy theory as news, making clear that no credible evidence exists to support the claim.

(c) Write up “he said,” “she said” news reports that treat the conspiracy theory as a matter of partisan dispute.

One can make a reasonable case for either (a) or (b), but several outlets chose (c) instead, writing up the charges in a format that is likely to help spread the myth and encourage more like it in the future. With incentives like these, should we be surprised that politicians and commentators keep making false claims?

Read the whole thing for more.

Understanding the "Romney won big!" narrative

As promised, I watched the debate last night without looking at Twitter, reading live blogs, reading emails, etc. Here's what I saw:

Unspun view of the debate - sticking by my pre-debate take: these are skilled pols who didn't get here by accident.

I saw nothing that would change race dynamic. As in most aspects of presidential campaigns, candidates are mostly fighting to a tie.

At best, Romney may firm up some soft supporters or pick up wavering GOP leaners with a negative impression of him from Obama ads, 47% video, etc.

I'm fully willing to concede that Romney might have performed somewhat better than Obama on stylistic grounds (as instant polls of debate watchers found), but the gap between the candidates was, in my view, relatively narrow. The debate was extremely wonky and lacked the sort of personal attacks and zingers that could be endlessly replayed in news coverage.

What's striking is how the media has transformed the debate into some sort of landslide victory that some hyperventilating commentators think could cost him the election. (The reality: Debates rarely move the polls more than a few points.) Here's why the debate is being framed as such a decisive Romney victory:

1. Low expectations: Both the public and journalists expected Obama to win even though it was not at all clear that he is a better debater than Romney.

2. Need for drama: The Atlantic's Robert Wright correctly predicted a Romney comeback narrative based on the media's need for drama and guessed that a better-than-expected debate performance might be the mechanism.

3. Restoring equilibrium: The fundamentals predict a very tight race (albeit with wide uncertainty) and yet the combination of Obama's convention bounce and the 47% video have helped him open up a substantial lead. It's plausible that Romney was underperforming. Certainly many voters had heard about a caricature of Romney that was unlikely to appear on stage. In that context, an event like a debate is more likely to be interpreted favorably and to help improve his public support and coverage a bit.

What's most interesting to me, though, is the way that the Romney victory narrative is constructed. Here's a look at how it's done using postmortems by Glenn Thrush in Politico and Ron Fournier in National Journal as examples:

1. Nuance-reducing headline: Both stories use headlines that frame the debate as some sort of rout:

Thrush: "Not debatable: Obama stumbles"

Fournier: "Incumbent Debate Curse: Barack Obama Falls to Mitt Romney"

2. Narratives about causes: Thrush and Fournier both framed their stories around the assertion that Obama performed poorly because he wasn't used to be challenged:

Thrush: "Obama, who has spent most of the past four years speaking to hand-picked interviewers or lecturing audiences required to remain mostly mute while he spoke, struggled to shake off the rust."

Fournier: "The president looked peeved and flat as he carried a conversation, for the first time in four years, with somebody telling him he’s wrong."

Even if we grant that Romney "won," we of course have no idea why Obama didn't perform as well as some had hoped, but the narrative works better if there's an understandable reason why Obama "lost."

3. Adjectives! Coverage of debates frequently consists of pseudo-analysis of how the candidates look on stage. With the debate lacking the dramatic exchanges and memorable zingers that journalists love so much, both Thrush and Fournier leaned heavily on adjectives to support their assertion that Obama lost. To Thrush, Obama "seemed far less comfortable, almost grim at times" and "seemed tense and defensive at times, and professorial," while Fournier wrote that Obama "looked peeved and flat" and "looked bitter."

If Romney picks up a point or two and the narrative incentives push in the direction of an Obama "win" in the second debate, expect him to be more likely to be portrayed as "resurgent," "confident," "energetic," etc.

New at CJR: Breaking the pack journalism paradigm

I have a new CJR column up warning journalists about converging on simplistic debate narratives based on campaign spin. As a remedy, I offer a tongue-in-cheek suggestion that news outlets should send a reporter into isolation to write up the debate without access to any other spin. What would happen? Here's how it begins:

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 debates are non-events, at least in terms of electoral impact; political science research suggests that they rarely cause a significant change in the polls. To the extent that debates do matter for the horse race, however, the most important mechanism seems to be not the content of the debate itself but the interpretation adopted in subsequent media coverage. Given these stakes, it’s vital that journalists be wary about coalescing too readily on a common narrative—and that they be especially skeptical of post-debate spin.

For more, read the whole thing.

Presentation on improving coverage of misinformation

On Wednesday, I spoke at an Annenberg Public Policy Center event at the National Press Club on "How Can Journalists Increase the Likelihood That the Facts Will Win Out?" For those who are interested, the C-SPAN video of my talk (approximately ten minutes) is here and the slides that I used are here.

New at CJR: Will Obama really "break the fever"?

My new column at CJR questions President Obama's claim that his re-election would "break the fever" among Republicans and induce a newfound spirit of cooperation. Here's how it begins:

With 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 opposition in Congress have received relatively little attention. But with the incumbent now a 3:1 favorite in betting and futures markets, his fanciful suggestions that being re-elected will convince Republicans to compromise with him deserve far greater scrutiny.

For more, read the whole thing.