Tuesday’s front page of the Washington Post had a collection of interesting stories above the fold: “Justices uphold Md. law on DNA,” “For Hezbollah, a risky engagement in Syria,” a large and compelling photo of “Chaos in Turkey’s streets,” and “Why the sharp rise in suicides by boomers?” I’m not nearly so melancholy about the demise of the print news product as some I know, but this type of front page is what I love — happening upon interesting stories you may not have sought out online on your own.
Something fishy in that AP racism story
The Associated Press had a huge story this weekend accusing American voters of racism, but a racism that has increased in the last four years. When people were asked if they were racist, they said no, but when a survey that measures racial preferences via tiny pictures and Chinese characters was used, the racism was found. The subhead at USA Today is “Overall, the survey found that by virtue of racial prejudice, Obama could lose 5 percentage points off his share of the popular vote on Nov. 6.” I’m still working through my thoughts about the story, how it was chosen, what it means that the Associated Press chose to investigate this story, the methodology they used, how they interpreted the results, and so on and so forth. But while digging through the data, I came across something very weird.