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Panel to Evaluate Media Coverage of the 2014 Elections Nov. 22

Panelists at free, public event are Nate Silver, Molly Ball and Brian Stelter

A panel of political journalists from broadcast, print and online media will gather on Saturday, Nov. 22, at Duke University’s Sanford School of Public Policy to evaluate media coverage of the 2014 elections.  The event begins at 1 p.m. in Fleishman Commons, and is free and open to the public. Duke’s DeWitt Wallace Center for Media and Democracy will host the panel discussion, "Predictions, Probabilities and Reality: Media Coverage of the 2014 Elections." The event is the 2014 John Fisher Zeidman Memorial Colloquium on Politics and the Press. Panelists are: •    Nate Silver, founder and editor-in-chief of FiveThirtyEight.com;•    Molly Ball, staff writer covering national politics for The Atlantic;•    Brian Stelter, senior media correspondent for CNN and host of the program “Reliable Sources.” Bill Adair, a professor of the practice of journalism and public policy at Duke and founder of PolitiFact, will moderate the discussion. Adair said the conversation will explore the rise of data journalism and the widespread use of polls and statistical models to predict the winners.“It was a great year for the number-crunchers,” Adair said. “But with many news organizations scaling back their ambitions, I’m concerned there were fewer reporters who were watching what the candidates said and analyzing their plans." Since 1984, the Zeidman Colloquium has brought prominent journalists and political analysts to Duke, including Ted Koppel, Gwen Ifill, Charlie Rose, David Brooks, David Gergen and Judy Woodruff, among many others, to discuss the relationship between media and politics. The colloquium was established by Philip and Nancy Zeidman in memory of their son, John Fisher Zeidman, a Duke student who died in 1982 after contracting viral encephalitis while studying in China. The Zeidman Colloquium celebrates John Zeidman’s passion for examining the interaction of politics and the press.For more information, visit the DeWitt Wallace Center for Media and Democracy website, dewitt.sanford.duke.edu.