It's not very long, but just too many good parts to selectively cut and paste here.

It basically says what a lot of people on this forum have been saying for a long time on topic after topic.

I hope that conservatives here will read it with an open mind and report back their take on it.

I thought this election might be the final straw that would show conservatives that only watch Fox and read right wing websites that the information they are given is not accurate. However, from reading the recent posts here about that, it looks like I was wrong. We aren't talking about opinion, or different takes on the same thing. We are talking about interpreting data (polls) to determine who was leading the race. Math, it was just math.

I can't understand it. If I was totally misled by the news outlets I watched and read, I would be pretty p'd off and would find a new source.

Yet, that is not happening and I just don't get it.

Don't get me wrong -- I'm perfectly fine with the right wing continuing on with business as usual, but I am fascinated that they are not learning from this experience and will continue to just get their news from the same sources when it's proven to be wrong.

And you always have to look at the source of the data. Who is paying for the poll, who is interpreting it and what is their political leaning. Many people don't get right down to the collection of the data level.

Kind of like me when I come across another coffee study. I am a coffee drinker and noone will ever convince me that it is bad for me. I ignore those studies who say it is bad for me (ohh - the milk/pop/tea/liquor producers paid for that study) and rejoice in those that say it is ok for me to drink it.

But when I find out someone, anyone (a person, a news service, anyone) has outright lied to me, I am not happy. I am much less likely to believe them in the future. I start to look back at everything they've told me and wonder what else was a lie. My point is I don't understand why conservatives are not doing that now given that the outcome of this election was exactly the opposite of what the right wing news was telling them.

The thing about Nate Silver is he wasn't spinning the data. He wasn't trying to make the data fit his agenda. He was evaluating it using computer models he built. And, his method was proven right in the last 2 election cycles (2008 and 2010). In fact, I would often come away from reading his post thinking to myself 'damn, why can't he just tell me Obama is going to win already?'. Of course, I knew why and that very reason is why I kept reading him. He wasn't giving his opinion. He wasn't saying what he wanted to happen. He was just talking facts, numbers and math.

If Nate Silver had been proven completely wrong this election cycle, I would be much less inclined to believe him the next time. He'd have to convince me why he got it wrong and that he was making changes to improve. If he didn't do either of those things, I would stop reading him and stop using him as a source of information.

This is what I thought the conservatives might do with Fox and right wing websites. But, they aren't as far as I can tell. And that's the part that puzzles me.

They'll just keep on doing what they are doing. When you've invested TOO MUCH in your position, it's hard to step back and be even a bit more objective, even when you've been lied to, over and over again. And as long as someone is preaching to the choir, the choir will be there listening.

I saw this right after the election:

"To appreciate the difficulties in modern polling, consider this: a third of voters surveyed in exit polls on Tuesday said that they had only cellphones, no land lines. They supported Mr. Obama over Mr. Romney by 11 points, 54 percent to 43 percent. And it is a group systematically excluded from some automated polls, like Rasmussen Reports, because the law requires that cellphone numbers are dialed by actual people, not computers."

Hay

In the meantime, do go read the following link, too long to post but rich with down-home details on What is Wrong with (Brownback)Kansas? Much detail about the disjunction between political views and the reality of government support systems on the great plains.

....ditto!

That is like taking advice from a stock broker who keeps piling up losses ... why would you invest your time/money ??

Huh?

Liar, liar, pants on fire.

I think, that if you were to search this forum, you'd find that my thinking was that, indeed, Obama was going to win.

I pretty much went with the betting crowd and the betting crowd had been consistently, again most certainly recently, betting that Obama was going to be the winner.

Put up or..., Marshall.

I'm willing to bet you can't find any time that I said that Obama would lose to Romney.

I've got to go do some work. You've got a couple of hours to find something to prove you're not an idiot. Good luck with that.

Hay

Me and you, baby.

Vegas or Bust!!!!

Hay

Do read the Kansas piece

That's me, folks. Holding down the (democratic) fort in BrownbackLand!

It is lighter blue than I expected, however. Unfortunately.

It is depressing being surrounded by a sea of (Brownback) red.

Kate

"Well, took me only a minute to discover that you are grouchy old fart without a sense of humor! :)"

Trust me, Marshall, I was laughing from the moment I saw your post until I ventured out into the cold, cold world.

And the laughter continued. Of all threads you could show us where you get your misinformation, that being your wee wittle bwawn, you had to pick this thread about Self-created information disadvantage.

You do keep me laughing, Marshall. Back to the salt mines for now. I'm hoping you'll post some more. I'll need a good laugh after I get back from all that hard labor.

Hay

Has your daughter finished building my iPhone yet?

It might surprise some people to learn that some of us are more than willing to leave our comfort zones, admit we're wrong, accept fault, apologize, learn from mistakes, look for sources that don't always match our own thinking, and enjoy expanding our minds with new and different pieces of information garnered from a variety of sources. Critical thinking and fact checking, mixed with a little common sense can be a delightful journey to take. It can also really puzzle us. But to sit and stagnate over the same sources of information day after day is just silly, in my opinion. Knowledge is power... it always will be.

I don't have any problem admitting I don't know something, and if it interests me, I'll make the effort to learn about it... but not through one source, only.

When I'm wrong, I say so. I'm human... I err. Sometimes I err a lot. So what?

But I can't be accused of living in a bubble with only one window looking out upon the world. My comfort zone is wherever I happen to make it... and sometimes, it begins a little bit uncomfortably. That's life.

And as a footnote... I freely admit that I did not read every post here... just the OP and the first few following. By that time, my mind was already protesting and demanding my fingers to get busy.

And now I'll finish reading and catch up with everything else...

No, sad to say, it's still in the prototype stage. I'll holler (if you're going to be talking Southern, you need to learn that word. 2. v. To yell at ill-behaved children who normally reside in the southern United States.) down to her that we've got a second order when she does get production going.

She may have gotten a capitalist pig streak in her from somewhere. She keeps pleading that we could go do something more productive like tap a Maple tree and trade the syrup for a real Iphone, but I'll have no part of that.

I couldn't bear the shame of my friends at Hot Topics and the ridicule for exporting a job.

Besides, maybe she'll want to run for President someday. I think it'd look better on her resume.

Time to go find me a good woman, a hardwood floor and some blues music. West Coast Swing Night!! Yehaw!!!!

Hay

Marshall, I was going to say that about you! : )

So if conservatives didn't pay a lot of attention to the right leaning media, relied instead of the rest of the media (which I believe lists to the left pretty heavily), what would conservatives has gained? Foreknowledge that the president would probably be re-elected? And what purpose would that serve? So that we could all be pretty sure than Romney would ultimately lose; so that we could all be prepared? Expecting the worse is highly over-rated, IMO.

I wasn't surprised in 2012, I was surprised in 2008. Didn't feel suicidal either time; if liberals could hang in there with President Bush, I guess I can handle 4 more years of President Obama; I mean we're not emigrating.

So the bottom line is no matter which news media I paid the most attention to, my vote would not have changed and I would not feel any better or any worse.

I guess what I'm saying is what difference does it make whether or not people who relied on election predictions had the most (ultimately) accurate information. Is the point that they should not have bothered to vote, or that they (we) should have voted for the president, since everyone loves a winner?

Most believe that it lists to the truth.

Neither. You missed the point completely.

Since you do not seem to be aware, Karl Rove and many other prominent Republicans, not mention some Republican voters, were experiencing a form of voter "shell-shock." They were so convinced Romney was winning that they almost could not digest the truth that he lost. Many of us were/are absolutely amazed that they believed so strongly that Romney couldn't lose--there was plenty of info. out there that would have told them otherwise or at least raised some questions--if it had been read. How did they miss it all? If they had paid attention to what other sources were saying instead of automatically writing it all off as lies and propaganda, they would not have had such high expectations and thus would not have had such a hard time coming to terms with the reality that their candidate lost. They were gullible when it came to their own rightwing sources and thus set themselves up for a fall!

So Elvis--none of that describes you? Fine. No problem. That doesn't make it any less true about Karl Rove and other prominent Republicans as well as many Republican voters who are still feeling a bit shell-shocked. Would it surprise you to find out that when posts refer to "Republicans" (plural) or "Romney voters" (plural), that does not mean just you. Nor are threads set up on this forum just to address you and you alone. Usually they are about thousands, maybe millions, of people besides yourself.

I would suggest that when topics, by your own admission, do not apply to you, perhaps you should not assume they are intended just for you and no one else.

This post, however, is addressed specifically to you.

Kate

The bigger point, elvis, is that the right wing media is not being truthful by only reporting the facts that fit their agenda. Therefore, if that's all you watch you are not getting the truth.

If you're ok with that, carry on. I'm just surprised that any rational thinking person could not be angry about that bigger picture.

So, thank you Kate.

I don't think the article leaned either way, truth be told. I think it brought to light a reality that too many people miss or overlook... that media is basically entertainment, brought to us in order to create profit, and not necessarily to inform. And to do that, it's often necessary to put a certain spin or edge to the given information, bend facts and curl language, whether subtly or not, or just create something if there's nothing to work with. After all, they have to hold rapt the audience's attention... tell them what they think they want to hear, and they know their job well.

It's not about real journalism anymore... it's about ratings, as one comment alludes. And ratings are gained by playing to an audience's emotions... like fear, outrage, etc...

It's not possible today to gain a fair and balanced view of real world news and facts without consulting many sources, some originating from outside our borders.

The name of the game is business, profit... plain and simple... and that's accomplished by entertaining an audience by playing upon their emotions, their fears and hopes and such. One is not informed through entertainment, but through journalism, and one must learn to decipher the difference.

They would have changed their strategy. That to me is the point - not that they would not have voted or been better prepared for the loss, but that they would have done things differently. And therefore Romney would have had a better chance of being elected.

I doubt it.

The media doesn't care who is in office... they'll still make money.

Interesting point. Does Fox News (I mean the business, not the on air personalities) really want a Republican President? Won't there be much less to be outraged about (in their view)? Would their numbers decrease if they can't get people worked up about something?

Is that like, dropping out of school?

Working for the campaign, I was pretty confident until I saw polls in the last week/ ten days. MSM and Fox...dead even or Romney ahead by one or two...even six by Rasmussen. I'd go to Nate every few hours and he never wavered. People here on HT poo- pooed him. I prayed this nerdy guy was right. Righties said he was a partisan. He was not. He started doing baseball statistics . At our celebratory party last night , Nate Silver was the name most heard in conversations everywhere. He kept us sane, and was 100% accurate while the polls the Righties love Rasmussen and Gallop were 25th and 26th in accuracy. That's why they're shellshocked...they were in their own little bubble fed by Rove. His five minutes of blustery fame on election night will be played forever. .

If you want news, turn off the TV :)

Many on the left have the same problem they accuse the right of, they spout talking points from "talking heads" you do realize, like Rushmouth, they make there money by you tuning in right?

That is why so many on the right think that Obama is a "liberal", trust me he is NOT!

The only reason he got my vote this time around is cause the republicans went "too far to the right" with all their anti this that and the other talk.

Okay now y'all can take aim and fire :)

No fire coming from me.

other sources, specifically on the internet, fill out the details and allow me to draw my own conclusions.

I don't like hearing a two- or three-minute segment on an important event; I want in-depth reporting, which usually means print media or 20-minute interviews on non-commercial radio.

I can spot when Scott Horton glides over certain facts in his Anti-War Radio broadcasts. My 'side' shouldn't be doing that.

Some are on tv, some online... most seem to carry the same basic world headline news stories, but they tell it a bit differently, or offer differing opinions or analysis... there's a lot of information out there to digest with a critical, rational thought process. We have our favorites, but wouldn't feel right taking everything at face value from only one source... so we poke around to see who's saying what, and where that information is coming from, depending on the topic and whether or not we want to learn more. If it's important, we definitely want to learn more.

That's the thing about knowledge... you can never be too full... and you can never learn everything there is to know. But it's still good, I think, to have a fair, accurate, and balanced idea of what's happening in the world.

I can't imagine getting my information from only one source. In this day and age it doesn't make sense. You can access news from all over getting more diversified viewpoints. Every media outlet is biased and has their own agenda including MSNBC. I don't watch much TV news and when I do it is usually Jon Stewart ;). Here in the US it is all entertainment anyway. There is too much information out there to limit myself to one or even two sources.

Kate, thanks from me as well. I was trying to make the very same points on the other thread but they weren't understood there either.

Then later, if time allows, its Christian Science Monitor, The Guardian, Le Monde, Vanity Fair, Rolling Stone, and, of course, The Onion.

We watch CBC every morning until about 9AM. Then its the BBC and CNN. Its really quite amusing to watch how differently the same story can be reported.

I find American news to be very US centric....almost impossible to get good world news on an American channel. The exception is Fareed Zahkhari (sp?) on CNN Sunday morning. His show is excellent and I highly recommend it to anyone who wants a broader perspective. Another I like is Reliable Sources also on CNN Sunday morning...more entertainment than news but often an interesting perspective on the media.

Other than that I use the internet to go deeper on certain subjects but I don't use it as a primary news source. Rarely do I access blogs but I must have my daily Onion fix

I get most my news from HT, truthfully.

Am I the only one so shallow as to adore Suri's Burn Book? Maybe it's a big city thing -- I recognize the attitudes and fashions even though I often don't know who the people are.

So says Suri: Politics aside, this election was a win for tween fashion.

Sasha and Malia -- four more years.

Oh boy! Someone who knows less than I do!!

Suri is Suri Cruise, daughter of Katie somebody and Tom Cruise. Her supposedly precocious personality informs the blog, and she freely dispenses fashion and other advice to the pee-wee set (and older). Think of it as The Onion for L.A.'s self-absorbed Westsiders, West Hollywoodians, and Silver Lakers. It's a verifiable hoot if you're familiar with the types.

Malia and Sasha are darling girls. Malia is grandson's age and a foot taller.