January 31, 2014
Briefly
- Data journalism and computing. Scott Klein (Nieman Journalism Lab, Harvard): In 2014, you will be scooped by a reporter who knows how to program. Alexander Howard (Tow Center for Digital Journalism Columbia) If you contrast his approach to commentators who make observations about Twitter without data or much experience, it’s easy to score one for the data journalist
- Post hoc ergo propter hoc: When the Huffington Post writes about a lottery winner “Perhaps fortune cookies really can predict the future. Or at least William Johnson’s did” you know they don’t really mean you to take the claim seriously, so it isn’t really irresponsible. When Stuff writes, in what’s basically an ad for an alternative medicine book `taking an alternative approach “was a gamble I was willing to take”, Jess says. It paid off,’ it’s less clear that they know this is bogus. At least they do mention her mother tried the same thing (for a potentially-curable type of cancer) and died. For ‘balance’ read what a cancer surgeon says about this case.
- There is no meaningful sense in which the recent fall in the Australian dollar affects the affordability of Auckland houses. The problem is bad enough without this sort of nonsense.
Thomas Lumley (@tslumley) is Professor of Biostatistics at the University of Auckland. His research interests include semiparametric models, survey sampling, statistical computing, foundations of statistics, and whatever methodological problems his medical collaborators come up with. He also blogs at Biased and Inefficient See all posts by Thomas Lumley »