{"product_id":"predicting-the-winner-the-untold-story-of-election-night-1952-and-the-dawn-of-computer-forecasting-9781640125964","title":"Predicting the Winner: The Untold Story of Election Night 1952 and the Dawn of Computer Forecasting","description":"The history of American elections changed profoundly on the night of November 4, 1952. An outside-the-box approach to predicting winners from early returns with new tools--computers--was launched live and untested on the newest medium for news: television. Like exhibits in a freak show, computers were referred to as \"electronic brains\" and \"mechanical monsters.\" \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e Yet this innovation would help fuel an obsession with numbers as a way of understanding and shaping politics. It would engender controversy down to our own time. And it would herald a future in which the public square would go digital. The gamble was fueled by a crisis of credibility stemming from faulty election-night forecasts four years earlier, in 1948, combined with a lackluster presentation of returns. What transpired in 1952 is a complex tale of responses to innovation, which Ira Chinoy makes understandable via a surprising history of election nights as venues for rolling out new technologies, refining methods of prediction, and providing opportunities for news organizations to shine. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e In \u003ci\u003ePredicting the Winner\u003c\/i\u003e Chinoy tells in detail for the first time the story of the 1952 election night--a night with continuing implications for the way forward from the dramatic events of 2020-21 and for future election nights in the United States. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAbout the Author\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eIra Chinoy\u003c\/b\u003e is an associate professor at the Philip Merrill College of Journalism at the University of Maryland, where he founded and directs the Future of Information Alliance. He is a former investigative reporter for the \u003ci\u003eWashington Post\u003c\/i\u003e, where he also served as director of computer-assisted reporting. Chinoy was part of two teams that won Pulitzer Prizes for reporting and has won the George Polk Award and other top journalism awards. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e","brand":"Potomac Books","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":50615653171474,"sku":"9781640125964","price":28.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0831\/4771\/8930\/files\/img_fe9c233f-ddd2-42bb-b9a2-e34caf9301b1.jpg?v=1732497839","url":"https:\/\/surprise-castle.myshopify.com\/products\/predicting-the-winner-the-untold-story-of-election-night-1952-and-the-dawn-of-computer-forecasting-9781640125964","provider":"Surprise Castle","version":"1.0","type":"link"}