SINCE Donald Trump beat Hillary Clinton, there has been a series of “why-oh-why didn’t the mainstream media see this coming” articles, and almost an equal number of attempts by journalists to claim that they had, against much available evidence. What follows is not an attempt to add to those, but rather to look at what we political journalists might do differently next time.
The role of the polls
In the final issue before the election, The Economist ran two stories about different demographic groups. The first pointed out that there was a widespread feeling among blue-collar whites that the odds of success in America in the 21st century had become stacked against them, and that this was accompanied by a belief that Mr Trump could tilt those odds back in their favour. The second described low levels of enthusiasm for Mrs Clinton among African-American voters. Had you read these two stories and nothing else, you would have concluded that Mr Trump was going to win. Yet that was not the impression we gave in our coverage overall.
Why was that? It was not because our reporters are out-of-touch, or because they misunderstood...Continue reading
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