As news media outlets put the finishing touches on their election day coverage plans there are three things likely being overlooked but shouldn’t be.
1 – Statistics don’t lie, statisticians do
2 – Calling someone an expert means absolutely nothing
3 – Pandering to your political base will cause more division in the country, making it more difficult for us to have unity after 2024
One: Different sample sizes, margins of error, and endless ways to manipulate the data, statistics are the manipulative older sibling of math. They tell you to eat the birthday cake before the party then rat you out to Mom or Dad the first chance they have.
Take a look at the latest polls:
Morning Consult: 45% Trump, 50% Harris, 5% Other
Reuters / Ipsos: 44% Trump, 50% Harris, 6% Other
Quinnipiac: 48% Trump, 48% Harris, 4% Other
Economist/YouGov: 44% Trump, 47% Harris, 9% Other
Rasmussen: 49% Trump, 47% Harris, 5% Other
If the math was so concrete these numbers wouldn’t have a four-to-five-point difference. Yea, statistics are great for sports because they are based on numbers which already happened. However, predicting the actions of people is not always easy.
Ok sure, back in 2010 Northeastern found 93% of human behavior is predictable. However, it’s that 7% which our impulses take over. It’s this decision making in our frontal lobe which statisticians are trying to determine. Yet, there’s billions of things which could happen between now and November 5th which could impact our vote.
Furthermore, voting in the general election has already started in some states (Minnesota, South Dakota, and Virgina started on Sept. 20, Illinois began on Sept. 26 while all other states being early voting in October).
Yet, if statisticians polled those who have already voted we would see the polls be skewed again because most of those who vote early lean toward the democrats (Why? because they are the party who have advocated for the ability to vote early).
In fact, some astute statisticians at Berkley studied how often polls are actually correct and it’s not pretty. Professor Don Moore put his findings best saying, “Most polls report a 95% confidence interval. But we found that the actual election outcome only lands inside that interval 60% of the time—and that’s just a week before the election. Further out, the hit rates fall even farther.”
When pollsters say they are 95% sure their election outcome will be correct, they actually mean they have no idea. Nolan Ryan had a better statistical outcome of winning a game (.526) than these statistical groups do of guessing who will win (and by how much) 3 weeks out from election day.
So, if we really want to talk about who will win the White House in 2024 instead of crunching numbers how about we send reporters out just to talk to Americans? And not in a ‘you have a Trump sign in front of your house why are you voting for him’ kind of way. Literally, go to a diner in middle America, sit-down and have coffee with people and ask who they are voting for and why. It would make for more interesting segments, and it would require less guessing.
Two: Being an expert means nothing. Being an expert used to mean something back before high profile attorneys started playing to the cameras and paying people to give their ‘opinion.’
Same thing goes for the people who call themselves guru, wizard (unless you went to Hogwarts), or my person favorite super genius (who are you Wile E Coyote?). All these people are playing a role, supporting one side, likely because they are getting paid. An expert opinion on why one candidate is better than another shouldn’t sway you because you can have two experts say polar opposite things.
Furthermore, who is handing out the title ‘expert’ anyway? Do you take a quiz on LinkedIn and afterwards it populates in your news feed? “Krystina Carroll just finished a course in ‘expert-ing’ on LinkedIn. Send her congratulations!” STOP. Enough with the experts, enough with the talking heads, just stick to the facts. There’s a Presidential election happening. It will likely be a close race. Here is what the candidates did today. The end.
Bringing on an ‘expert’ to decipher what something means is just a distraction from the actual facts of the day. Here is where the economy is, here is what is happening with crime, here is what is happening overseas (and yes, we do have members of our military in active war zones right now.)
This is what we need to be focused on when it comes to the election cycle. It shouldn’t be that much more different than a regular news cycle. Why? because the issues that are going to affect us on November 4 will still be there on November 6 regardless of who is elected.
Three (and this is a big one): pandering to your political base will cause more division in the country, making it more difficult for us to have unity after 2024.
Calling members of the other party a “threat” is the most dangerous thing you can do in society. What’s worse is that it’s happening on both sides of the media aisle. OAN’s headline ‘Overthrowing the Constitution: All Sides Are Waging War on Our Freedoms’ is just as bad as MSNBC host Stephanie Ruhle saying Donald Trump is a ‘threat’ to our democracy (which you are wrong we are not a Democracy, but I digress). This is just one example of the left and the right manipulating their audience against each other.
Yes, we have free speech and freedom of the press, but we have a responsibility to find unity when it feels like there is none. It’s been years since we have seen a single outlet trying to find unity in all the chaos. It is this lack of integrity and show of unity from the press which is dividing the country more than Donald Trump and Kamala Harris combined.
If neither side of the media can help unify, this country will fail. We are a Constitutional Republic. Our First Amendment protects us, the press, from government/political backlash (provided your facts are right). Meaning we are supposed to ask the tough questions of our politicians (yes, that is a direct dig at you, Stephanie Ruhle). We are supposed to treat both sides equally. Most importantly, we have a responsibility to support whoever is elected on November 5th because if the President fails, we fail.
Krystina Alarcon Carroll is a news media columnist and features writer for Barrett Media. She has experience in almost every facet of the industry including: digital and print news; live, streamed, and syndicated TV; documentary and film productions. Her prior employers have included NY1 and Fox News Digital and the Law & Crime Network. You can find Krystina on X (formerly twitter) @KrystinaAlaCarr.
