Source | Washington Post
NPR news apps developer Jeremy Bowers discusses in Knight-Mozilla OpenNews' Source the legwork that went into the Washington Post's election predictor app.

Bowers worked with the Post's Ezra Klein and graphics editor Emily Chow to produce the tool, which launched in April 2012 using economic data models from to predict the likelihood of President Obama being re-elected. In the essay, Bowers says the work of political science professors John Sides at George Washington University, Lynn Vavreck at UCLA, and Seth Hill at Yale (now of UC-San Diego) was integral to the process. (more...)

Politico | The Hollywood Reporter
As White House press conferences turn 100 this month, Towson University political science professor Martha Joynt Kumar reassures us that they haven't lost their usefulness.

She explains that Woodrow Wilson established press conferences and invited all reporters, not just a press corps, to attend these off-the-record sessions. That form has long fallen by the wayside, with the advent of joint press conferences with other world leaders, Q&A sessions and personal interviews with chief executives.

With interviews and short question-and-answer sessions, will the solo press conference that Wilson established become a relic? Not likely. While presidents may not use them as frequently, press conferences are a place where presidents provide answers to hard questions and establish that they know what they are talking about.

Although there have been complaints that Obama has restricted press access, Kumar offers a table pointing out that Obama seems much more comfortable in one-on-one discussions that allow him "to delve into issues that are important to him and demonstrate his command of policy." He has had 79 news conferences since being elected (George W. Bush had 89 total in eight years; his father held 143 in one term), compared to 674 interviews -- 116 shy of the number that both Bushes and Bill Clinton had combined. (more...)

U-T San Diego
A San Diego group that hired an investigative journalist to collect negative information about a mayoral candidate filed a "financial disclosure to settle a joint investigation by the San Diego Ethics Commission and the state Fair Political Practices Commission," Craig Gustafson reports in U-T San Diego.

Spotlight San Diego paid former San Diego Union-Tribune reporter Caitlin Rother "nearly $23,000" to produce a dossier on Carl DeMaio that it distributed anonymously to media outlets, Gustafson writes. The investment paid off only modestly, however:

The information dredged up went largely unreported because many in the media considered it old, irrelevant and an untoward attempt to draw attention to DeMaio’s homosexuality during the race. The records focused mainly on legal problems involving his partner — San Diego Gay & Lesbian News Publisher Johnathan Hale.

(more...)

Gawker | Twitter
Gawker Editor John Cook noticed the 43rd president's email address on screengrabs published by a hacker named Guccifer, who previously messed up Colin Powell's Facebook page and who plucked Bush's shower self-portrait from emails she or he has hacked. He suggested readers use the address to "Wish George W. Bush a Happy Iraq War Day."

A commenter named Janet Margrave was outraged by the breach: "To unleash people on him via a private email address, is wrong," Margrave wrote. "Maybe the Secret Service will come tapping at your door."

Another Iraq War figure stirred up commenters Tuesday: Former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld tweeted a commemoration of "the long, difficult work of liberating 25 mil Iraqis" that began a decade ago. Tweets replying to this sentiment go on for a while. (more...)

Capital News Service
A staffer for Vice President Joe Biden demanded that a reporter delete photos he'd taken at an event in Rockville, Md., Tuesday. The vice president's office later apologized to University of Maryland J-school Dean Lucy Dalglish after she complained about the incident in a letter.

Jeremy Barr, a reporter with the University of Maryland's Capital News Service, was seated in a non-press section for the event, at which the vice president announced an anti-domestic violence initiative. Biden staffer Dana Rosenzweig approached Barr after the event and ordered him to delete photos.

“She said, ‘I need to see your camera right now.’” Barr said. The staffer called Barr’s presence in the non-press area an “unfair advantage” over the other members of the media at the event.

The staffer then requested to watch as Barr deleted the photos from his camera to ensure his compliance, Barr said.

After deleting the photos from the camera, the staffer asked Barr to show her his iPhone to make sure no photos were saved. Barr complied.

(more...)

BuzzFeed | The Atlantic | Business Insider | The Washington Post
BuzzFeed's new White House reporter pumps his colleagues for information on how to run the beat. "It can be frustrating and soul-killing to listen to the same talking points and spin sessions day after day," New York Times reporter Peter Baker tells Evan McMorris-Santoro. (Is there a "House of Cards" paragraph? Try to write this piece without one!)

Baker says the job is "only stenography if you choose it to be," and that "the challenge is to be creative not just in uncovering information the press office doesn't want to give out, but also in taking the information that is available and writing about it in a way that goes deeper below the surface and gives readers a better, sharper analysis of what's really going on."

"The best way to cover the White House is not to cover the White House," Yahoo's Olivier Knox tells McMorris-Santoro. (more...)