Wednesday, March 26, 2014

Getting the News

I have added a couple links over in the right column to blogs about the news.  The most promising from my point of view is Joe Monahan's; he comments extensively and nearly on a daily basis on New Mexico politics.  I was prompted to go looking for new information sources on local news by yet another killing by the Albuquerque police of a person with mental health issues.  The local TV news has devoted quite a lot of time to the event, but the coverage of any topic in the typical half-hour format is superficial at best.  Monahan is well-connected and his wide-ranging articles are well written.  His reporting on the positions of local politicians on the issue of Albuquerque's out-of-control police department is superior to anything else I have found on the topic.

I'm hopeful but less optimistic for the new web site and blog under the direction of number-cruncher, Nate Silver, FiveThirtyEight.  Silver's performance in predicting the outcomes in the last presidential race in every state was flawless.  I thought his book about number crunching was much less impressive.  His new on line undertaking employs a large team of writers with pretty good statistical credentials, but it remains to be seen if they can bring something really new to the table.  Quite a lot of attention is devoted to sports statistics which is of no interest to me.  The political and economic stories so far have mostly seemed uninspired, and the one on climate change by Roger Pielke was something of a disaster.

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