Media & Politics Must Reads, August 26, 2016

Our weekly roundup of news found at the intersection of media, politics, policy and technology, from the Shorenstein Center and from around the web.

This Week at the Shorenstein Center

Social Media Is Allowing Presidential Candidates To Connect With Voters, Take Aim At Each Other. Shorenstein Center director Nicco Mele and Amy Mitchell, director of journalism research at Pew Research Center, discussed how social media is influencing the presidential election on WBUR’s Radio Boston. Mele also discussed the impact of Facebook’s identification of users’ political views on campaigns in The Christian Science Monitor.

News from Our Fellows

Milwaukee’s Invisible Racial Cage. Derrick Z. Jackson, fall 2016 Joan Shorenstein Fellow, writes about the conditions in Milwaukee that have contributed to unrest in the wake of a police shooting, including a lack of economic opportunity and public transportation.

Why Is Jill Stein the Only Presidential Candidate Taking Public Funds? Marilyn Thompson, spring 2016 fellow and national politics editor on special assignment for The Washington Post, writes about why both major parties have abandoned the public matching funds program for presidential elections. Also see Thompson’s Shorenstein Center paper about campaign finance, The Dream is Dead: Can Taxpayer Money Save Presidential Campaigns?

Do Presidential Election Polls Tell the Whole Story? Michael Traugott, spring 2009 fellow and professor emeritus of communication studies and political science at the University of Michigan, explains why the polls, which show Hillary Clinton in the lead, are unlikely to change much between now and Election Day barring a major “negative disclosure” about Clinton.

Clinton Is Vastly Outspending Trump on Ads. Is It Hurting Him? Judy Woodruff, fall 2005 fellow and PBS NewsHour anchor, discusses the role of money and media in the presidential race with Matea Gold of The Washington Post.

From around the Web

The More Partisan Your Online Media Diet, the Less Likely You Are to Believe Fact-Checkers, from Poynter.

Inside Facebook’s (Totally Insane, Unintentionally Gigantic, Hyperpartisan) Political-Media Machine, from The New York Times Magazine.

Liberal, Moderate or Conservative? See How Facebook Labels You, from The New York Times.

Reuters’s New Polling Simulator Is Built for the Age of Trump, from Columbia Journalism Review.

Get Better Election Predictions by Combining Diverse Forecasts, from The Conversation.

Trump TV: Coming to a Screen Near You? From The Takeaway, WNYC.

Hillary Clinton’s Press Conference Problem, Explained, from Vox.

How The Hill Is Using Snapchat to Cover the Presidential Race, from Digiday.

Follow the Leaders? Jill Stein and Gary Johnson’s Twitter and Facebook Activity, from Tow Center for Digital Journalism.

The New York Times Has Created a Newsroom-Wide Team for Covering Race, from Poynter.

For Spanish-Language Networks, a Critical Election: Broadcasters Are Putting Muscle behind Get-Out-The-Vote Campaigns, from Media Life Magazine.

Hot Pod: Can a Political Podcast Avoid Being Overtaken by Events? From Nieman Lab.

Mother Jones Shows Investigative Journalism Matters — and Needs a New Model, from Mashable.

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