{"id":3800,"date":"2016-03-08T16:20:34","date_gmt":"2016-03-08T22:20:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/backgroundprobability\/?p=3800"},"modified":"2016-03-08T15:32:16","modified_gmt":"2016-03-08T21:32:16","slug":"possible-pedantry-preserved-posterity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/backgroundprobability\/2016\/03\/08\/possible-pedantry-preserved-posterity\/","title":{"rendered":"Possible Pedantry Preserved For Posterity"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>After the Saturday elections, Mike Pesca laid down a scathing series of tweets taking the national media to task for failing to clearly and precisely communicate how party primaries actually work in their Sunday coverage. Here follow\u00a0some of the highlights.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"500\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">A proper headline from Saturday&#39;s voting is: Clinton expands lead on Sanders; Cruz gains on Trump. So let&#39;s see how newspapers played it.<\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Mike Pesca (@pescami) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/pescami\/status\/706623065124413440?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">March 6, 2016<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"500\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Split states, but Cruz got more delegates, salient point, no? <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/I6UDoIVXjm\">pic.twitter.com\/I6UDoIVXjm<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Mike Pesca (@pescami) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/pescami\/status\/706623246603526144?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">March 6, 2016<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"500\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Mixed verdict, but like a boxer winning  a mixed decision <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/0G24Bv8pih\">pic.twitter.com\/0G24Bv8pih<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Mike Pesca (@pescami) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/pescami\/status\/706623400979075073?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">March 6, 2016<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"500\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Split, sure. But why not say who won? <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/JpBvsHBR81\">pic.twitter.com\/JpBvsHBR81<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Mike Pesca (@pescami) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/pescami\/status\/706623473502851072?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">March 6, 2016<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"500\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Split victories, yet there was a winner, maybe put that up top? <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/6veHGKwst8\">pic.twitter.com\/6veHGKwst8<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Mike Pesca (@pescami) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/pescami\/status\/706623606067994624?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">March 6, 2016<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"500\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Packers, Bears each nab 2 quarters&#8211; wouldn&#39;t we want to know who won? <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/VvmGwAc7Zo\">pic.twitter.com\/VvmGwAc7Zo<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Mike Pesca (@pescami) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/pescami\/status\/706623910788374528?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">March 6, 2016<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"500\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">But states don&#39;t count, delegates do. <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/4fHIWBVnJk\">pic.twitter.com\/4fHIWBVnJk<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Mike Pesca (@pescami) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/pescami\/status\/706624008729526272?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">March 6, 2016<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"500\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Actually Cruz won. Sanders lost ground and had fewer delegates. This was the worst front page headline I saw. <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/HNeXkS4mbG\">pic.twitter.com\/HNeXkS4mbG<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Mike Pesca (@pescami) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/pescami\/status\/706626601778343937?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">March 6, 2016<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>After all this, it somehow gets even worse, because the only headline which Pesca fulsomely praised (<a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/J9TulJ4k69\" target=\"_blank\">on his podcast<\/a>) was that of the\u00a0Providence Journal:<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"500\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">(Providencejournal) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/Cruz?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">#Cruz<\/a> gains ground: <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/Takes?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">#Takes<\/a> Kansas, Maine : NEW ORLEANS\u00a0\u2014 Republican presidential candidate.. <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/f1Iz1CZj7Z\">https:\/\/t.co\/f1Iz1CZj7Z<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; StoriesFlow.com (@storiesflowcom) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/storiesflowcom\/status\/706336600423141376?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">March 6, 2016<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>This was an accurate headline in the paper edition, but if you <a href=\"http:\/\/www.providencejournal.com\/article\/20160305\/NEWS\/160309513\" target=\"_blank\">click through to the story<\/a>, you will find that the headline has been altered in the online edition and no longer reflects reality as a result.<\/p>\n<p>Why does this matter? Because rounding results up to the state level creates a series of false impressions in the minds of readers whenever the <em>race for delegates<\/em> is not (yet) functioning as winner-take-all at the state level. Such misinformation should be especially worrisome given the special role that <a href=\"http:\/\/press-pubs.uchicago.edu\/founders\/documents\/amendI_speechs8.html\" target=\"_blank\">Thomas Jefferson envisioned<\/a> for newspapers (and journalists in general) to play in preserving our democratic form of government.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>After the Saturday elections, Mike Pesca laid down a scathing series of tweets taking the national media to task for&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23,"featured_media":3735,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18,10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3800","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-damned-lies-and-statistics","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/backgroundprobability\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3800","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/backgroundprobability\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/backgroundprobability\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/backgroundprobability\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/23"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/backgroundprobability\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3800"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/backgroundprobability\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3800\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/backgroundprobability\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3735"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/backgroundprobability\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3800"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/backgroundprobability\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3800"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/backgroundprobability\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3800"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}