Oliver Darcy here. Scroll down for headlines from swing states, Chris Cuomo confronting Miles Taylor, Big Tech CEOs grilled on Capitol Hill, Spotify's internal Joe Rogan-Alex Jones talking points, World Series ratings, and more. But first...
Trusting the models
A serious slice of the country is still scarred from 2016 when Donald Trump defied the odds and defeated Hillary Clinton. Four years later, that political upset has led many Americans to be skeptical of current models showing Trump, once again, having a slim chance of emerging victorious against Joe Biden. Everyone has heard some version of this from voters on the ground, family on the phone, or friends in a group chat. "Yeah, the experts say Trump has a small chance of beating Biden, but the experts also said the same thing in 2016, and they were wrong."
To be clear, the models never said it was impossible for Trump to lose in 2016. FiveThirtyEight gave Trump a 28.6% chance, for example, and The Upshot gave him a 15% chance. But many were left with the strong impression that Clinton had the race locked down. When things went sideways for her, it led to a distrust of polling and the data journalists who use such polls to forecast predictions.
This year, the models are once again spelling bad news for Trump. FiveThirtyEight puts his odds at about 11%. The Economist puts his chances even lower at 4%. And while these models put Trump in a much tougher spot than back in 2016, they still do leave open the chance that Trump could win re-election. So what if Trump does win? What if we occupy the universe which gives him either an 11% or 4% chance of emerging victorious? What will that mean for the credibility of data journalists and their forecasting models?
"That's something I think about a lot"
I phoned The Economist's G. Elliot Morris to hear his thoughts. Is he worried about what might happen next week if Trump manages to win against all odds? "That's something I think about a lot," Morris told me. "If we are wrong this time, the perception that polls are unfixable or our analyses are crap would be quite damaging. I'm concerned about that." Morris is of the mindset that what happened in 2016 was "more of a perceived error than an actual one," noting that the models did allow for a Trump victory. And he's confident in The Economist's model.
But Morris also pointed out that there are things that modeling does not take into account. He said, for instance, that a significant number of ballots could not be counted in Wisconsin due to the Supreme Court's recent decision. "That's not something our models take into account," Morris said.
"I can't do anything about the election outcome"
I also reached out to FiveThirtyEight's Nate Silver who also stressed that in 2016 he and his colleagues did say Trump had a chance of winning. "We warned folks that Trump could win and a lot of people didn't heed that warning," Silver said. Regarding this year's modeling, he explained, "We're not going out on any sort of limb here. We're just stating the obvious. Biden's pretty far ahead in polls and the candidate who's ahead in polls by a margin like that usually wins."
Asked if he is worried people might be hesitant to trust models like his in the future if Trump does win, which his model again allows for, Silver replied, "I don't really give a s**t because I can't do anything about the election outcome. Obviously I can predict that some people might get disillusioned, etc. But it's not something within my control." Silver added, "So if the 10% chance comes though ... that's going to happen every once in a while. It's supposed to happen! And there's not much we can do about it."
Enten's POV
CNN's Harry Enten emails: "I still think the model at my former place of business (FiveThirtyEight) adequately gave Trump his due (nearly 30% chance of winning). But I think the models and projections that generally have Biden ahead this year are going to pick the right winner for a few reasons. Biden’s in a better position in the state polling (see his high single digit leads in Michigan and Wisconsin). He’s running ahead by 9 or 10 points nationally, while Clinton’s lead was closer to 3 or 4 points. Finally, pollsters have at least tried to make some adjustments after 2016 (such as weighting by education and will be polling until the last minute in the key battlegrounds)."
>> Enten adds: "Of course, there’s no guarantee of Trump losing. I think the job of data journalism (at least as I see it) is to explain what the chances are. I’ve been very careful to say Trump still has a chance. Sometimes unusual things happen. I honestly don’t see if Biden were to win as a confirmation that the models were right. You really can’t judge that off one or two elections. That said, I know that doesn’t necessarily work in the real world. People will take Trump winning as a sign as the models being wrong. I guess that somewhat worries me, but to be honest there are other things that worry me much more in life."
Even if the polls are off...
NYT's Nate Cohn pointed out Wednesday that, even if the polls are as off as they were in 2016, Biden will still win. Cohn wrote that the final polls "are usually more accurate" than those conducted further out from Election Day. "If the polls don’t tighten over the next few days, [Trump] will need the polls to be off by even more than they were four years ago."
While Cohn was not available for an interview Wednesday, NYT data editor Amanda Cox noted to me that the paper has "invested heavily in conducting polls" this cycle, doing more than 40 state polls. "Our journalism is showing readers both what we know and what we don't know," Cox added. "On the election night and until its conclusion, the presentation of results on our website and apps will highlight states where a significant amount of the vote has not yet been counted to convey to readers the degree of uncertainty of a race."
FOR THE RECORD, PART ONE
-- The latest #s: "More than a third of registered voters have already voted..." (CNN)
-- WaPo's Greg Sargent writes: "It's not clear to me that folks are sufficiently appreciating the magnitude and the great importance of the surge in early voting... It may end up transforming our politics to a far greater extent than any of us can yet imagine..." (WaPo)
-- Vox's Andrew Prokop: "The big question overshadowing 'Who will win the presidential election?' is: 'When will we actually know who won?'" (Vox)
-- This is an interesting visualization using Google Trends data to show the interest level about different topics in the election... (Waves of Interest)
-- Meanwhile: The Weather Channel practically has had Hurricane Zeta to itself, on TV, as the other cable news networks understandably focus on the election and the coronavirus...
-- Here's the latest from the National Hurricane Center: "Zeta Moving Rapidly Through Mississippi and Alabama With Dangerous Storm Surge, Strong Gusty Winds and Heavy Rain..." (NHC)
Headlines from swing states
>> Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: "For now, Pa.’s ballot-counting extension intact as Supreme Court declines to hear appeal..."
>> Raleigh News & Observer: "US Supreme Court keeps Nov. 12 deadline for NC to accept mailed-in absentee ballots..."
>> Florida Sun Sentinel: "Joe Biden plans drive-in car rallies as he and Donald Trump compete for Florida voters’ attention at same time on same day..."
>> The Columbus Dispatch: "Mike Bloomberg-paid ads for Joe Biden hit Ohio..."
>> Atlanta Journal-Constitution: "‘There will be lines': Georgia set for high turnout in final days..."
>> Arizona Republic: "Trump's disrespect of McSally was painful to watch..."
One common thread
As I've been scanning the homepages of major newspapers in swing states, one thing has stood out to me: the emphasis the local news orgs are putting on the coronavirus. "Fall surge feared as Georgia COVID-19 cases rise again," a headline on the Atlanta Journal-Constitution's site read. "Ohio adds 2,607 COVID cases as hospitalizations soar," read another on The Columbus Dispatch. "COVID-19 is claiming more lives than official data indicates," read yet another on the Florida Sun-Sentinel's site.
Meanwhile, Trump has been criss-crossing the country falsely claiming the US is rounding the corner on the pandemic. This isn't going to square with voters who are reading their local papers — and it's worth noting, local news sources are among the most trusted in the country...
Campaigning against reality
Brian Stelter writes: "Four full years of 'fake news' lies were always leading up to this. Alex Burns' latest for the NYT captures the fact that Trump 'is closing his re-election campaign by pleading with voters to ignore the evidence of a calamity unfolding before their eyes and trust his word that the disease is already disappearing as a threat to their personal health and economic well being.' He is campaigning against reality – and reporters shouldn't be afraid to say so..."
One country, two worlds
Brian Stelter adds: "From CNN's new poll, on all the measures 'of where the country stands in the fight against coronavirus, Biden voters and Trump voters hold completely opposite views,' Jennifer Agiesta reported Wednesday. 'Among Biden backers, 77% say the worst of the pandemic is ahead, while 78% of Trump voters feel it is behind us.' To some degree this is an emotional measure – and I sure hope the worst is over – but as a factual matter, public health experts are pretty united behind the view that the worst of the pandemic is yet to come. For an example, watch Scott Gottlieb on CNBC Wednesday morning: 'I think we're entering the most difficult phase of the pandemic right now.' So this is yet another example of one country in two worlds of information, one closer to reality than the other..."
Cue the fight over the Q3 GDP...
"On its surface, economic growth data out this week will look like one for the record books. But dig in, and the picture is not as bright." That's how NPR's Scott Horsley put it in a story Wednesday, looking ahead to Thursday's GDP report. One thing everyone should keep in mind when the numbers are released: they follow a massive economic contraction. But it's unlikely Trump and his allies will put this in proper context. Which is why it's up to newsrooms to make sure to do so. In the past, some newsrooms have failed to present the jobs reports in proper context. (I wrote about this back in August.) Language and context are crucial. What happens in the world does not happen in a vacuum. And it's up to newsrooms to convey this to readers...
>> Related: CNN Business' Annalyn Kurtz and Tal Yellin published an excellent story Wednesday using 10 charts to illustrate how the Trump economy has performed compared to the economies of previous US presidents...
THURSDAY PLANNER
Comcast and Spotify release earnings before the bell...
Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Netflix and Alphabet all report earnings after the bell...
Biden is in Florida... Trump is also in Florida and North Carolina... Harris is in DC... And Pence is in Iowa and Nevada...
FOR THE RECORD, PART TWO
-- Tucker Carlson's interview with Tony Bobulinski lifted the program to 7.5 million viewers, "its largest audience of 2020..." (TVNewser)
-- On Wednesday night, Carlson claimed that his Hunter Biden documents were mysteriously lost in the mail... (Mediaite)
-- MAGA media is scrambling "to repair the Hunter Biden narrative," Tina Nguyen wrote: "Instead of publishing the more salacious allegations, conservative media has been more focused on covering alleged suppression of the story..." (Politico)
-- Fox News has covered the Hunter Biden story more than twice as much as the surge in coronavirus cases... (Media Matters)
-- Where we're at: Fox's Greg Gutfeld is already raising the prospect of a Biden impeachment inquiry. As Stelter tweeted, "this was an inevitable line of Fox commentary... and it's going to get louder..." (Twitter)
"Why should CNN keep you on the payroll after lying like that?"
When Jake Tapper reported that Miles Taylor — the former DHS chief of staff and current CNN contributor who has been sharply critical of Trump — was the "Anonymous" author of the 2018 NYT op-ed, he told viewers that CNN "did not know this until today." Soon after, an August clip resurfaced, confirming exactly that. In the clip, Anderson Cooper asked Taylor point blank if he was "Anonymous." Taylor lied, insisting to Cooper that he was not.
CNN declined on Wednesday to comment on Taylor's lie to Cooper, but Chris Cuomo confronted him head on. "You lied to us," Cuomo told Taylor during an interview. "Why should CNN keep you on the payroll after lying like that?" Taylor defended himself, saying he lied because he "wanted that work to stand on its own two legs and deprive the president of an opportunity to do one more personal attack to distract from his record." Taylor added that he owed Cooper a beer and a mea culpa. But as Cuomo noted, "The problem with having lied is that you're now a liar..."
>> Walter Shaub's take: "I would note that Taylor was very convincing when he lied to CNN's audience. I'm convinced of only one thing: You won't be able to tell from looking at him the next time Miles Taylor lies to you..."
NYT questioned
After Taylor was revealed to have been "Anonymous," some critics assailed NYT for having described him as a "senior administration official." Susan Hennessey tweeted that she's not sure it "holds up especially well." Jonathan Swan was especially critical, tweeting that NYT's decision was "an embarrassment." Swan added, "I also didn’t realize the definition of 'senior administration official' could be *this* expansive. Wasn’t even an agency chief of staff at the time the op-ed ran."
>> Josh Barro's idea: "I am quite serious in my suggestion that news organizations should promulgate a specific list of federal government titles that qualify as 'senior administration official.' You could even have official gradations!"
Coates' question for RCP
Before Taylor ID'd himself, there had been speculation inside the WH that then-deputy national security adviser Victoria Coates was the person who wrote the 2018 op-ed. That rumor made its way to Real Clear Investigations, which published a story by far-right writer Paul Sperry in April saying as much. Coates tweeted to Real Clear chief Tom Bevan on Wednesday evening: "Are you going to publish a retraction of this embarrassment?" At the time I'm writing this, there is none...
NYT Mag's cover
For the next week, we'll be featuring some of the best election-related magazine and newspaper covers. On Wednesday The New York Times Magazine shared its Sunday cover, written by Elaina Plott, titled (on the web) "Win or lose, it's Donald Trump's Republican Party now..."
FOR THE RECORD, PART THREE
-- CNN obtained audio from Jared Kushner's interview with Bob Woodward. In it, Kushner boasted that Trump was taking the country "back from the doctors..." (CNN)
-- Maggie Haberman called Trump's retweet of Jeff Mason a "perfect distillation of the president's approach -- calling a reporter a 'criminal' for not reporting the way the president wants, then retweeting a crowd shot from same reporter days later..." (Twitter)
-- What a tragic anniversary, the birth of QAnon: "Three years ago today, a 'military intel team' called Q first posted on 4chan, claiming Hillary Clinton's arrest was imminent," Mike Rothschild noted... (Twitter)
-- Max Boot argues in his latest column that conservatives "have to destroy the Republican Party in order to save it," with conspiracies like QAnon flourishing among its members... (WaPo)
-- Jonathan Chait wrote that "the stench of Trump's racism will cling to his enablers forever," name-checking some personalities in right-wing media... (NY Mag)
Big Tech hearings worthless?
"Two words describe the Senate's latest Big Tech hearing: Worthless and petty," CNN's Brian Fung wrote Wednesday after Mark Zuckerberg, Sundar Pichai, and Jack Dorsey testified before Congress. Fung wrote that before each hearing featuring Big Tech CEOs, there is "breathless media coverage and a looming sense that something momentous was about to happen that could shake up Silicon Valley." But Fung suggested, "After more than two years of these hearings, it's time to conclude that many of them are worthless."
>> Fung's summary of what happened Wednesday: "The purpose of the hearing was, ostensibly, a discussion of possible changes to a law that grants tech platforms legal immunity for their content moderation decisions. Instead what the public saw was a highly partisan display that had nearly as much sniping by lawmakers at one another as questions directed at the CEOs. It was a hearing virtually devoid of substance and that barely touched on matters of policy..."
Cruz's confrontation of Dorsey
Perhaps the most talked about moment of the Wednesday hearing was when Ted Cruz confronted Jack Dorsey over Twitter's decision making surrounding the New York Post story on Hunter Biden. "Who the hell elected you?" Cruz asked Dorsey before laying into him.
Wired's Gilad Edelman made a great point about this: "The most notable thing about Cruz’s broadside was not its vituperative tone but the fact that it was directed at Dorsey and not the other two CEOs called to testify, Mark Zuckerberg and Sundar Pichai. Indeed, over the course of the hearing, Dorsey fielded more questions from Republicans than those two combined, according to a New York Times tally. And yet Facebook and Google are far more embedded in American life, and play a far greater gatekeeping role, than Twitter could ever dream of."
FOR THE RECORD, PART FOUR
-- Richard Prince reports: "ABC News has chosen Galen Gordon, a former ESPN coordinating producer and an African American, to succeed the disgraced Barbara Fedida, a white executive who left her position in July after an investigation confirmed that she had made unacceptable racially insensitive comments..." (Journal-isms)
-- BI's Dave Levinthal reported on journalists who have made political contributions, sometimes against newsroom guidelines... (BI)
-- There's apparently some election-related drama over at the NYT Cooking Facebook group... (BuzzFeed)
-- UPI is looking into a copyright issue related to greeting cards from the McCloskey's which use one of the agency's photos... (St. Louis Post-Dispatch)
"A place for creative expressions"
Kerry Flynn emails: "Spotify Chief Legal Officer and Head of Global Affairs Horacio Gutierrez seemingly defended Joe Rogan hosting conspiracy theorist Alex Jones on his podcast Wednesday in a memo leaked to Jane Lytvynenko of BuzzFeed News. While the memo didn't directly name Rogan and Jones, it included talking points on content concerns, including 'Spotify has always been a place for creative expressions. It’s important to have diverse voices and points of view on our platform.' Spotify declined to comment on the memo or Jones."
>> Flynn adds: "Spotify reports its Q3 earnings Thursday morning, so I'll be listening if Spotify CEO Daniel Ek chooses to address the controversy in his opening remarks or if an analyst asks about it..."
"Heartbroken" in Salt Lake City
"I'm heartbroken," Salt Lake City mayor Erin Mendenhall told the NYT in reaction to this news, reported by Jenny Gross and Bryan Pietsch:
"In the span of just two days, Salt Lake City learned that it would join the list of American cities without a daily newspaper after both of its major papers said they would stop printing a daily edition at the end of the year." The partnership between the two papers, the Salt Like Tribune and The Deseret News, is being dissolved. The Tribune is going weekly, and so is The Deseret News, with the addition of a monthly magazine. Details here...
>> Poynter's Rick Edmonds has more here...
FOR THE RECORD, PART FIVE
-- Kerry Flynn writes: City Pages, the 41-year-old alt-weekly covering Twin Cities culture and politics, abruptly shut down. Star Tribune Media CEO Mike Klingensmith wrote in a memo that the "profound disruptions of the COVID-19 pandemic have made it economically unviable..." (Star Tribune)
-- Matthew McConaughey's "GREENLIGHTS" debuted at No. 1 on the NYT's nonfiction list... (NYT)
-- Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is on the cover of December's Vanity Fair. The profile is by Michelle Ruiz. AOC "holds our attention like few politicians I can remember," EIC Radhika Jones writes. "She is smart without cynicism. She doesn't assume everyone already knows the game..." (VF)
MLB investigates Turner
In a pointed statement Wednesday afternoon, MLB reprimanded Dodgers third baseman Justin Taylor for having returned to the field to celebrate the team's World Series win, despite having tested positive for the coronavirus. "While a desire to celebrate is understandable, Turner’s decision to leave isolation and enter the field was wrong and put everyone he came in contact with at risk," MLB said. "When MLB Security raised the matter of being on the field with Turner, he emphatically refused to comply." The league added that the commissioner's office "is beginning a full investigation into this matter..."
Reporters roughed up in the post-game chaos
The LA Times documented one such episode: "Lexis-Olivier Ray, a multimedia journalist reporting for LATACO, said he was near West 8th and Flower streets when a group of officers suddenly rushed forward and pinned him against a car... Ray, a Black man and a freelancer, said there has been a 'different tone' to how the LAPD has dealt with crowds and treated journalists lately — especially journalists of color who aren't affiliated with major media outlets." Read more...
Record low ratings...
The World Series sank to a "record low TV audience," TheWrap's Tim Baysinger wrote Wednesday, but on the bright side "the 2020 edition of the Fall Classic did accomplish something that hasn’t happened in four years. It drew a larger audience than the NBA Finals." Overall the six-game series averaged 9.72 million viewers this month, down from 13.9 million viewers for last fall's World Series. Theories for the general decline in sports viewership include, per this recent Ben Strauss story, "the intensity of the political news cycle, a glut of sports on TV and viewers’ lives being upended by the pandemic..."
Why a critic didn't find the new "Borat" as funny
Brian Lowry emails: "Los Angeles Times critic Mary McNamara said the new 'Borat' movie hit her differently than the original, in part because the nature of the satire is harder to enjoy in the current news cycle. 'It is funny, though not in the same way as the first Borat film is funny,' she wrote, adding, 'The laughter that greets political satire in 2020 is more rueful than revelatory.' Read her full review here..."
"This is Us" premiere scores monster ratings
Brian Lowry emails: "Despite airing opposite the deciding game of the World Series, the season premiere of 'This is Us' averaged 7.3 million viewers on Tuesday. According to NBC, that was the biggest same-day audience for a scripted program since May 1. Last season’s finale drew just under 8 million viewers in March."
FOR THE RECORD, PART SIX
By Lisa Respers France:
-- Khloe Kardashian has revealed she had Covid-19...
-- 2020 BET Hip Hop Awards: See who won and which politician made a surprise appearance...
-- "The Bachelorette" drama is coming: Clare Crawley cries and Tayshia Adams emerges...
-- The forthcoming Netflix limited series, "Colin in Black & White," has found its young Kaepernick...
LAST BUT NOT LEAST...
Lucy the newsletter-reading cat!
Reader Monica Cyrino emails: "Lucy loves to read the newsletter from a chic mid century modern chair..."
Thanks for reading. Email me your feedback anytime. Stelter will be back tomorrow...
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