In addition to checking KOS/538/Sam Wang, like most of you, I spent much of the last 10 days watching the back-and-forth on social media over Nate Silver (Jay Rosen has a nice compilation of the major critiques here). While the fact that Silver has been incredibly accurate in his predictions the last two presidential cycles is part of his draw, and while I agree that there's a equivalence between the quantitative revolution championed by Moneyball and the prestige accorded to Nate Silver, it seems to me that a large part of his success can be attributed to the success of the GOP and its proxies in neutering the truth-telling abilities of the traditional media. In other words, Nate Silver skied to success on the slopes of "bullish*t mountain." More below . . .
Those of us who read KOS on a regular basis are well versed in how the doctrine of false equivalency and "some say" reporting has rendered most traditional media outlets virtually useless as sources of information as opposed to nexuses of contradictory opinions (at least in the context of political reporting).
A simple example from last night: while driving home I listened to NPR report that John Boehner was ready to compromise with the President on increasing tax revenues to avoid, ZMG, "THE FISICAL CLIFF!!!!" Here's a rough transcript of Boehner's words as reported by NPR:
[Boehner] said the party is open to increased revenue . . . as the byproduct of a growing economy, energized by a simpler, cleaner, fairer tax code, with fewer loopholes, and lower rates for all.”[Source: Washington Post]
Clearly, this is not a compromise position. Rather, it's Boehner re-stating the GOP's opposition to raising taxes on top earners and calling it a compromise. NPR then dutifully repeats the claim that this same position is now an offer to compromise. And the point here is not to criticize NPR -- they're merely participating in current "Journalistic" conventions as practiced by broadcast media in the wake of 20 years of the GOP working the refs by crying liberal bias.
When NPR, which, for all its faults, remains a gold-standard for broadcast political reporting (broadcast != cable or new/social media) is incapable of reporting the fact that the GOP will oppose all rate increases on top earners, reasonable consumers of news media will look elsewhere for political information as opposed to political opinion.
In Nate Silver's case, math serves as a firewall to the conservative establishment's concerted efforts at working the refs. By emphasizing numbers ahead of narrative (and by being right), he bypasses the ground ground that has been captured by the GOP -- the ground of narrative so nicely summed-up in the claim that evolution and global warming deniers merely want to "teach the controversy."
The irony here is that, in addition to the rise of social media and a new, it is exactly the GOP's successful effort to muddy the factual waters in traditional media outlets that have given Nate Silver such power.