… Traditional reporters and analysts want to be neutral, detached observers who deliver information about the political process without participating in it. But in the context of a primary debate, true neutrality and total detachment are basically impossible. In a primary debate, there’s no higher authority or judge who will […] Read more »
Watching the Democratic debate tonight — with Twitter on the little screen? Keep this in mind.
As the Democrats debate tonight and tomorrow, many people — journalists included — will be watching two screens: on one, the debates themselves, and on the other, Twitter’s stream of hot takes. Recent reports remind us that Twitter does not mirror the world at large. Yet journalists’ reliance on it […] Read more »
When Facts Change Opinions: A Discussion With Brendan Nyhan
When consuming the news, people bring their biases with them. However, University of Michigan professor Brendan Nyhan and other scholars have found that facts can — and do — change people’s minds when presented under certain conditions. We discuss his research on how to create a more widely-shared understanding of […] Read more »
What We Know About The Impact Of Primary Debates
… Political science tends to be skeptical of general election debates. The people who are most likely to tune into debates tend to be highly informed and already engaged in politics — and thus already likely to have formed an opinion. This has become especially true in recent years as […] Read more »
The Polling Industry Is in Crisis
… Why is polling in presidential nomination fights so unreliable? For one, no one knows who will vote. In Iowa, for instance, caucus turnout almost doubled from 2004 to 2008 (thank you, Barack Obama) and then dropped by more than a quarter in 2016. Second, a dwindling number of Americans […] Read more »
Women and Electability – Part 2
In Part 1 of this post, I argued that there is no solid reason to consider women less electable than men in the 2020 Presidential contest. Women candidates do need to grapple, however, with four areas that may create misconceptions of their potential. First is implicit bias, second is the […] Read more »