Bernie's Data Defined

A recent Vox article aggressively asserts that Bernie Sanders has lost the race for the democratic nomination. I first chose this article operating under the framework of the chart in its approaches to journalism as I think the title being “Reality Check: Bernie Sanders has lost the race for the Democratic nomination” is an embodiment of one way to approach to data journalism. The article depends on the data gathered from quantitative research. It mentions how Sanders is behind by “300 delegates,” but then explains that he has a small margin of victory. The explanation given behind the quantitative statistic introduces and anecdotal story for the narrative to continue. It allows the writer to branch into a related topic about how he will therefore need to win every state to overcome the present deficit. The journalist makes inferences that are given power through the chart’s approach where there is a spectrum of a story being a multitude of forms from extremely quantitative and anecdotal to quantitative and rigorous. Data is used primarily here as a predictive model shaped from anecdotes hopefully to be formed into rigorous facts. 

Additionally, it is hard to find the line between the quantitative and qualitative research the article employs. The article uses secondary sources from stories in the New York Times and a few Wall Street Journal op-ed pieces like this. When using secondary research, it becomes much easier for a less exaggerated explanation to form. The majority of the story seems to be complimented by an inferred explanation from this research, depending on an anecdotal approach in-between a line of quantitative and qualitative driven data.

I find this piece extremely interesting, as the only data used was the data the author knew would help his story. In this circumstance, I know that there could have been potential data left out as it would not have helped the case the narrative was trying to approach and employ. Really, the article instead of using data, uses more already established facts known to the public to build upon its argument. For example, the article asserts that just because Bernie is running, it doesn’t mean that he is still in the race. The fact: Bernie is running, is known and no knew qualitative or quantitative relevant information. However, the article depends on this fact to build its next approach in shifting the story to why Bernie simply cannot win. Opperating under Nate Silver’s chart, I can see where the lines are blurred in data journalism where facts can be right and just but misrepresented just so a specific narrative can be framed using any combination of approaches that it can benefit from.

Link to article: http://www.vox.com/2016/5/17/11686336/bernie-sanders-lost-democratic-nomination