ACS produces weak data but what possible excuse is there for all the journalists and editors who consistently write misleading stories based upon it?
I’m not even asking journalists to pick up a phone and talk to a person or any of the things they used to do before it turned into click farming. You can contextualize these polls with some google research.
- TheInvisibleMan - Friday, Mar 15, 24 @ 12:20 pm:
–what possible excuse–
It’s the ‘passive voice’ excuse journalists love to use to justify their laziness.
It’s also what leads to most local ‘news’ being nothing more than reprinting press releases from local governments without any fact checking at all.
Fact checking within an article would be taking an active part. For some reason, that’s frowned upon.
The ACS is limited to the prior existence of phone lines and addresses. Over time, these parameters have become less reliable predictors of population estimates. Immigration and homelessness and persistent poverty are unlikely to be captured and addressed via monthly telephone surveys and mailer surveys.
That said, the ACS is a good instrument for measuring labor economic trends. But in the absence of an actual census of the population, the ACS is what we have, and the only tool we currently have.
I work with data and create trends on a daily basis. If that community survey came from me and I was using it to project between the full count I would get fired.
- Roman - Friday, Mar 15, 24 @ 11:50 am:
== The ACS has become a joke. ==
Agreed. But for lazy editors and reporters who are looking for easy cut-and-paste stories, it’s the gift that keeps giving.
- Larry Bowa Jr. - Friday, Mar 15, 24 @ 11:54 am:
ACS produces weak data but what possible excuse is there for all the journalists and editors who consistently write misleading stories based upon it?
I’m not even asking journalists to pick up a phone and talk to a person or any of the things they used to do before it turned into click farming. You can contextualize these polls with some google research.
- TheInvisibleMan - Friday, Mar 15, 24 @ 12:20 pm:
–what possible excuse–
It’s the ‘passive voice’ excuse journalists love to use to justify their laziness.
It’s also what leads to most local ‘news’ being nothing more than reprinting press releases from local governments without any fact checking at all.
Fact checking within an article would be taking an active part. For some reason, that’s frowned upon.
- H-W - Friday, Mar 15, 24 @ 1:42 pm:
The ACS is limited to the prior existence of phone lines and addresses. Over time, these parameters have become less reliable predictors of population estimates. Immigration and homelessness and persistent poverty are unlikely to be captured and addressed via monthly telephone surveys and mailer surveys.
That said, the ACS is a good instrument for measuring labor economic trends. But in the absence of an actual census of the population, the ACS is what we have, and the only tool we currently have.
- GoneFishing - Friday, Mar 15, 24 @ 3:24 pm:
I work with data and create trends on a daily basis. If that community survey came from me and I was using it to project between the full count I would get fired.
- Soccermom - Friday, Mar 15, 24 @ 3:34 pm:
I’m working on a project with some other people who do a lot of statistical analysis, etc., and we all agreed that ACS is kind of useless…