10/13/16 poll analysis

NYT

Polls are not leading the news, and polls are not shown on the homepage.

The leading election news is about Trump’s allegations towards sexualizing women.

Polls –

Clinton: 45%, has an 89% chance of winning presidency.

Trump 40%

The usual information is listed below the polls including histograms, state polling averages and the option to see a four-way poll.

All of the seven deadly sins are used correctly and can be found under the NYT methodology.

Real Clear Politics

A chart including RCP’s polling average, the electoral college and updated battleground averages are listed in the upper right hand corner of the website.

Clinton is up 6.2 percentage points according to the RCP average.

Towards the middle of the home page, the charts for the national RCP poll average and RCP electoral college map are present, showing Clinton at 48% and Trump at 41.8%.

The polls are not leading the news on RCP, the leading news stories include “Trump Cult of Personality Was on Full Display in Pa.” by Michael Cohen, Boston Globe, “It’s Trump vs. Clinton and Bush in 2016” by Charles Hurt, Washington Times, and “The Final Weeks of Clinton Crimes” by Mark Leibovich, NYT Mag.

ABC News

Leading news stories regarding election: “Trump Calls Sexual Assault Allegations ‘Vicious Claims, Outright Lies’” and “Clinton’s Relationship with Banks Detailed in Purportedly hacked Emails”.

Polls are not leading the news.

ABC is still the only news organization out of the four that I have chosen to cover Hurricane Matthew or other worldly news other than the scandal of an election.

All of the seven deadly sins are followed correctly and can be found in the methodology of the polls.

The poll shows Clinton with 272 estimated electoral votes and Trump with 197.

Five Thirty Eight

The election forecast map is shown on the top right-hand corner of the homepage.

A single lead story is about the polls on this site, “Election Update: Post-Debate Polls Show Trump Still in Big Trouble” by Nate Silver. All other leading news stories are not about the polls.

The election forecast has Clinton at 87% and Trump at 13%. This seems a little skewed compared to the above mentioned numbers; however, FiveThirtyEight uses a strange “forecast” of polling, so this isn’t surprising.

I follow Cohn’s advice because I always start with the topline results, although neither has come very close to 50%. Hilary has kept the lead, but still is quite a way away from 50%. I need to start looking at whether the polls are using registered or likely voters. Everything else mentioned I’ve mostly looked at by researching the methodology of each poll.

Professionally, I could adopt the Wall Street Journal policy because it incorporates good advice for any journalist: write short stories using concise language that are newsworthy. Personally, I could adopt the policy because change in a newsroom is what keeps it sharp and up-to-date. Our world and our news are ever evolving and that means that we should continue to improve as well.