Maggie Haberman, Nate Silver Spar Over Whose 2016 Coverage Was Worse
Image by Getty Images
By Aiden Pink September 26, 2017
Two of the most prominent political observers in the country got into a Twitter tiff on Tuesday over whose coverage of the 2016 presidential election was more misleading and inaccurate.
It started when Nate Silver—the former New York Times statistical wunderkind who left in 2013 to run his own ESPN-backed website, 538—noted a Haberman report on the Trump White House’s use of private emails, contrasting it with the Times’ wall-to-wall coverage of similar issues for Hillary Clinton:
The story is written in the passive voice. But Clinton’s emails didn’t *just happen* to become a huge story. The NYT was a huge reason why.
— Nate Silver (@NateSilver538) September 26, 2017
Haberman hit back by mocking the pollster’s recent track record on political predictions:
It’s this keen understanding of media and politics that you demonstrated with your own modeling https://t.co/IFV9lrE5Ku
— Maggie Haberman (@maggieNYT) September 26, 2017
But Silver responded by arguing that he had actually predicted the election better than the Times and other prognosticators:
I guess I’m obliged to point out that our model & our reproting gave Trump a way better chance than you guys did. https://t.co/mbr5z9wdvy
— Nate Silver (@NateSilver538) September 26, 2017
Haberman ended the tete-a-tete by criticizing Silver for “trolling”:
Things are always more nuanced and complicated than your trolling tweets of your former employer. That’s the point https://t.co/ApJ6WrT4sM
— Maggie Haberman (@maggieNYT) September 26, 2017
Contact Aiden Pink at [email protected] or on Twitter, @aidenpink
Did you know that only 2% of Forward readers donate to support our nonprofit newsroom? That 2% make it possible for millions to read the Forward without a paywall or subscription — removing any barriers to the full and fair Jewish story.
But while the Forward is free to read, it isn’t free to produce. Big stories — like deep dives into the antisemitism data, political scoops or reporting trips to college campuses — take months of research and fact-checking. All while we keep you informed of what you need to know each day.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Forward Publisher & CEO
Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
