Sunday, October 05, 2008
See what you need to see
I watched CNN's coverage of the VEEP debate on Thursday night, including Soledad O'Brien's "focus group" discussion afterwards. I saw her ask for a show of hands -- who won the debate? -- and then declare on what seemed like a closely split room that Biden had won "overwhelmingly." Sitting as I was in a European hotel room I had no DVR at hand, but Megan McArdle did:
Soledad O'Brien polls the 32 "persuadables" by asking them to indicate, by a show of hands, who they thought won. She calls the vote for Biden "overwhelming". The magic of Tivo allows us to freeze frame and count: 11 or 12 for Palin, 12 or 13 for Biden (some people are hard to see). Thanks, Soledad, for giving credence to everyone who thinks women are bad at Math.
Well, if mathematicians were free of observer bias, we would hire them to sit as judges and run clinical trials. It is not that Soledad cannot do math; it is that she saw what she expected to see.
CWCID: Glenn Reynolds.
5 Comments:
By 
, at
Sun Oct 05, 01:30:00 PM:
"...it is that she saw what she expected to see."
The MSM is adding about 10-15 points to the polls for their candidate. They should be ashamed.
About a year ago I read an AP article about some local Anaheim news that I had some knowledge of. The article was so off the mark I don't take anything that they print at face value anymore.
By 
Gary Rosen, at
Sun Oct 05, 01:47:00 PM:
tyree, there is an old saying, "Everything you read in the newspaper is true except for those things you have personal knowledge of."
By joated, at
Sun Oct 05, 08:10:00 PM:
"...it is that she saw what she expected to see."
No, it is that she saw what she wanted to see.
By , at
Sun Oct 05, 11:29:00 PM:
I don't think she saw anything. She probably would have said Biden won no matter what the audience actually did. The narrative trumps facts, after all.
By , at
Mon Oct 06, 06:09:00 PM:
It appears that Fox's very own roving reporter suffers from the same inability to count: "Definitely a battleground state" my d*ck
