News Media

The notion that journalists are math phobic and prone to error when working with numbers is an age-old cliché, embodied in the quip that, for many in the media, the plural of anecdote is data.

The 2016 presidential election cycle has been filled with speculation about what could happen at the Republican and Democratic party conventions this summer, given the highly contested nature of both primaries.

Trying to stay informed about the flurry of changes and shifts within the news media business is no easy task. From the decline in advertising and shifts in ad tech to new digital-ethical puzzles and social media strategies, there are many emerging topics — and many outlets and voices, both new and old, digging into the latest trends.

Scholars have hypothesized that state capitals such as Trenton, N.J., Albany, N.Y., or Springfield, Ill., may be more susceptible to political corruption because they are geographically remote from their state’s major metropolitan centers — and therefore remain out of the full glare of the public spotlight. But prior research has not definitively established a precise connection or pinpointed the mechanisms that might explain such a pattern.

The vast streams of digital data being produced are proving to be a goldmine for marketers and companies of all kinds, but they also are a promising source of information for journalists.