Brendan Nyhan

My new column at CJR reviews coverage of John Boehner’s re-election as Speaker of the House. Like much recent coverage of his leadership, these articles often provided little explanatory context for why he has struggled to exercise control over his caucus. Here’s how it begins:

On Thursday, John Boehner survived some conservative defections to narrowly win re-election as Speaker of the House, prompting a predictable display of emotion from the notoriously weepy speaker.

With the vote taking place just days after Boehner allowed the House to pass a bill addressing the so-called “fiscal cliff” that was opposed by a majority of Republicans, numerous news reports on the vote for speaker noted the difficulty he has faced in exercising leadership over his caucus during the last two years.

Unfortunately, most of these articles fell into an awkward middle ground that frequently plagues political coverage in Washington. The best reporting and analysis either provides rich new details on what is happening on Capitol Hill or puts events there into a broader political or policy context. However, too many articles make no contributions in either area, instead providing brief, episodic coverage that contains few specifics and little explanatory depth.

In this case, coverage of Boehner often consisted of unsubstantiated assertions that his demeanor and leadership approach have reduced his ability to exercise control over the House.

Read the whole thing for more.

For those who are interested, I have a new article in Political Psychology with Michael Cobb and Jason Reifler on the effects of discredited positive misinformation. Contrary to previous research, which finds that negative misinformation tends to have lasting effects on people’s evaluations of politicians even after it is shown to be false, we show that politicians are punished by voters when positive misinformation about them is discredited even if they were not trying to deceive the public.

Here’s the abstract – the full article is here (gated) and a pre-publication version is here:

Beliefs Don’t Always Persevere: How Political Figures Are Punished When Positive Information about Them Is Discredited

Recent research has extended the belief-perseverance paradigm to the political realm, showing that negative information about political figures has a persistent effect on political opinions even after it has been discredited. However, little is known about the effects of false positive information about political figures. In three experiments, we find that discrediting positive information generates a “punishment effect” that is inconsistent with the previous literature on belief perseverance. We argue people attempt to adjust for the perceived influence of the false claim when the information is discredited. In this case, when trying to account for the effects of discredited positive information about a politician, people overestimate how much correction is needed and thus end up with a more negative opinion. (By contrast, people underestimate how much correction is needed to adjust for false negative information, leading to belief perseverance.) These results suggest that bogus credit claiming or other positive misinformation can have severe repercussions for politicians.

For more, see my previous articles on misperceptions and factual beliefs:
–Misinformation and Fact-checking: Research Findings from Social Science (with Jason Reifler)
–Why the “Death Panel” Myth Wouldn’t Die: Misinformation in the Health Care Reform Debate (ungated copy)
–When Corrections Fail: The Persistence of Political Misperceptions (pre-publication version) (with Jason Reifler)
–The Limited Effects of Testimony on Political Persuasion (pre-publication version)

My new column at CJR warns the media to avoid Green Lantern-style thinking in covering and commenting on President Obama’s response to the shootings in Newtown. Here’s how it begins:

In a riff inspired by the blogger Matthew Yglesias a few years ago, I proposed what I called the Green Lantern theory of the presidency to describe people who attribute all policy failures and compromise to a lack of presidential will. (For the uninitiated, the Green Lantern Corps are comic book heroes whose abilities to wield a “power ring” depend on their willpower.)

These assumptions, which come up all the time in political coverage and commentary (and are often encouraged by presidential candidates, particularly before they take office), are now creeping in to reporting and debate on potential policy responses to the elementary school massacre in Newtown, CT.

Read the whole thing for more.

My new CJR column considers the argument that the pressure for partisan balance in factchecking made 2012 campaign coverage worse. Here’s how it begins:

Factchecking made great strides during the 2012 campaign, but were those advances compromised by the pressure to maintain partisan balance?

Two respected Washington think tank scholars say yes. Thomas Mann of the Brookings Institution and Norman Ornstein of the American Enterprise Institute, who have recently argued that Republican extremism is to blame for many of the pathologies of Washington, told The Huffington Post’s Dan Froomkin last week that journalistic factchecking of the 2012 campaign may have been counterproductive…

Read the whole thing for more.

My new column at CJR contrasts the questionable value-add for horse race journalism with the “fiscal cliff” negotiations, where good insider reporting is desperately needed. Here’s how it begins:

We’ve just finished an election in which quantitative analysis provided far more accurate predictions than pundits and reporters, who frequently offered claims and analysis that were not informed by high-quality poll averages or basic political science. As a result, traditional journalists are licking their wounds and trying to re-evaluate how they can add value to campaign coverage.

Almost as quickly, however, the media’s focus has shifted from the election to the negotiations between President Obama and Congressional Republicans over how to avoid the so-called “fiscal cliff”—a topic where polls and quantitative analysis have relatively little to offer. Reporters, by contrast, have a great deal to contribute—indeed, they are the best source of information we have on the terms of the debate between the parties and the structure of the dynamics within each caucus.

For more, read the whole thing.

My new column at CJR considers the future of the fact-checking movement after the 2012 campaign. Here’s how it begins:

As journalists close the books on 2012 and look forward to coverage of a second Obama administration, one important question is where the factchecking movement goes from here.

The general election campaign was unquestionably the most intensively factchecked in history. While factchecking did not eliminate falsehoods from our politics, this was always an unrealistic expectation. The relevant question is whether politicians were more careful, and voters better informed, than they would have been without factchecking. By that standard, the expansion of factchecking seems likely to have had a positive effect.

Given these successes, many observers hope the media will continue to increase the resources and attention given to factchecking in the future. In an interview with New York Times reporter Brian Stelter, for instance, NYU professor and media critic Jay Rosen suggested CNN should “declare jihad on the talking points” and prominently feature “on-air fact-checking”…

Any further expansion of factchecking—whether as the new brand of a cable news network or in other print or broadcast outlets—faces significant challenges, however.

For more, read the whole thing.

My new piece for CJR examines the media’s propensity for hindsight bias in post-election coverage, which typically shifts from pre-election uncertainty to portraying the outcome as inevitable. Here’s how it begins:

The media has undergone a strange change of mindset. Immediately before last Tuesday’s election, many reporters and commentators ignored or dismissed the consensus among forecasters and betting markets that President Obama was very likely to defeat Mitt Romney and acted instead as if the candidates were neck and neck or Romney was ahead. Afterward, however, coverage of how Obama won betrayed far less uncertainty about the outcome of the election, which was frequently portrayed as a fait accompli—an inevitable consequence of how Romney’s image was defined by Obama’s early ads or overwhelmed by the President’s superior ground game.

Read the whole thing for more.

I was interviewed today on WHYY Philadelphia’s “Radio Times with Marty Moss-Coane” about “Facts, lies and the 2012 election” – summary and audio below for those who are interested:

In a presidential election where each candidate accused the other of playing lose with the facts, in the end each campaign, to some degree, was guilty of misrepresenting the truth.    As a result, what we saw was an unprecedented rise in journalists turning into fact checkers in print, online, and on television and radio.   They had to work harder and faster to keep up with the false claims, exaggerations and downright lies that shaped the political discourse.  But were their efforts effective and did they make a difference?  Did the public pay any attention and do voters even care about the facts?  And why and how can politicians get away with it?   In this hour of Radio Times we'll talk about political facts vs. lies and what we can do to demand accuracy and honesty in politics.  Our guest is Dartmouth professor of government BRENDAN NYHAN.

Listen to the mp3

My new column at CJR cautions journalists against unsupported interpretations of how and why President Obama defeated Mitt Romney in yesterday’s presidential election. Here’s how it begins:

One of the most fascinating parts of the aftermath of an election is the construction of post-hoc narratives to “explain” the results. There’s plenty of Web traffic to be gained by meeting the public’s demand for these sorts of tidy explanations, but there’s peril too. Reporters should be wary of telling stories about why President Obama won re-election that are not supported by the available evidence.

The most important fact for understanding what happened last night is that the fundamentals mattered. As in 2004 and 2008, the results in the presidential race corresponded closely to the forecasting models, which are largely driven by economic variables and presidential approval. In this case, a model-averaged composite forecast published before the election predicted that Obama would receive 50.3 percent of the two-party vote—quite close to his current total of 51.1 percent. In short, the state of the economy predicted a very close race that narrowly favored Obama. That’s exactly what we observed.

Read the whole thing for more.

When the September jobs report showed that unemployment had dropped to an unexpectedly low 7.8%, former General Electric CEO Jack Welch helped launch a new conspiracy theory when he tweeted: “Unbelievable jobs numbers..these Chicago guys will do anything..can’t debate so change numbers.” Even though the unemployment statistics are produced by the respected and politically insulated Bureau of Labor Statistics, Welch’s theory was disseminated by numerous conservative pundits and amplified by a wave of irresponsible media coverage. As we approach Election Day, it’s worth taking a look back and assessing the damage.

To assess the prevalence of conspiracy theory beliefs about manipulation of the unemployment data, I contributed several questions to a YouGov poll conducted October 27-29, 2012 (margin of error: +/- 4.6%; topline data and sample demographics here). The poll was conducted before the October unemployment figures were released last Friday and thus reflects public beliefs about the September unemployment data approximately three weeks after its release on October 5.

I first asked survey respondents how accurate they believe the 7.8% unemployment figure is on a five-point scale from “Extremely accurate” to “Not at all accurate.” The median response was the middle category of “Somewhat accurate,” which may reflect skepticism about the way unemployment figures are calculated or a general distrust of government. However, there was a steep partisan gradient in mean responses by party. When we separate Democrats (including independents who lean Democrat), Republicans (including leaners), and true independents, we find that independents and especially Republicans are far less likely than Democrats to believe that the unemployment statistics are accurate (click graphics for larger versions):

In particular, more than 70% of respondents reported having heard about the claim that the unemployment statistics were manipulated for political reasons (21% said they had heard a lot about it, 51% said they had heard a little, and 28% said nothing at all). Half said they had first heard about the claim on television and 20% from news websites or blogs, suggesting the role played by the mainstream media in circulating the claim (only 5% said they first heard about it on a social networking site like Facebook or Twitter).

Moreover, a disturbing number of respondents endorsed the unemployment statistics conspiracy theory. When I explicitly asked respondents whether the September figure had been manipulated for political reasons or had been calculated correctly, 55% said they thought the figures had been manipulated. In this case, the partisan gradient was even steeper than on the perceived accuracy question – only 23% of Democrats thought the figures were manipulated compared with 61% of independents and a staggering 85% of Republicans: 

While we cannot determine the origins of these beliefs in a single survey, the partisan differences we observe are consistent with extensive previous research on the importance of motivated reasoning in misperceptions about politics and the difficulty of correcting misinformation among motivated reasoners.

The relationship between political knowledge and conspiracy theory belief may be especially surprising to many people. It’s often assumed that more knowledgeable or educated people will be less likely to believe in false or unsupported claims, but that assumption is often tenuous. The reason is that knowledge or education can often make it easier to maintain consistency between your political views and factual beliefs.

In this case, I divide the sample into terciles of low, medium, and high political knowledge based on their answers to a ten-question battery and plot the probabilities of believing the unemployment figures are at least somewhat accurate and, conversely, that they are being manipulated for each partisan group (along with 95% confidence intervals).

Among respondents who identify as Democrats or lean toward the party, high-knowledge respondents are more likely to believe the figures are accurate and less likely to believe they are being manipulated than individuals with low or medium knowledge. For Republicans (including leaners), however, respondents with high political knowledge are paradoxically less likely to believe the unemployment statistics are accurate than those with low or medium political knowledge. In addition, high knowledge Republicans are more likely to believe the statistics are being manipulated than low knowledge respondents. (The difference between medium and high knowledge respondents is not statistically significant.)

This survey was conducted just days before a presidential election – a time when partisanship is at its peak. Nevertheless, people’s willingness to endorse unproven conspiracy theories is a disturbing reminder of the damage that can be inflicted on public discourse when irresponsible claims are given widespread circulation.

(Cross-posted on Model Politics)