Hindsight Bias and Obama’s Victory

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Brendan Nyhan writes today about the metamorphosis of campaign coverage:

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.

Brendan says this is a result of hindsight bias, and I suppose that’s true, sort of by definition. But there’s nothing unique here. Before the Super Bowl, sports talkers chatter about how well the two teams are matched up. After the game, they talk about how the winner managed to win. Why? Because the game is over. They now know what worked and what didn’t.

I’m not sure it’s really fair to call this “bias.” Once a contest is over, and you know who won, you also have a better idea of which tactics won. In the case of the 2012 election, reporters have concluded that defining Romney early worked and that Obama’s ground game made a difference. If he had lost, they would have concluded the opposite. They might be wrong in those conclusions—hell, historians are still arguing about why the South lost Gettysburg even after 150 years of study—but there’s nothing irrational about it. I happen to agree that reporters tend to overdo this, paying too little attention to things like economic fundamentals and the power of incumbency, but still, once you know how something turns out, it’s perfectly sensible to conclude that the winner’s tactics were effective and the loser’s tactics weren’t.

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WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

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