Vox Sentences: Michigan sticks its thumb in the pollsters’ eye

A huge upset for Bernie Sanders in Michigan; Sony might fire music producer Dr. Luke (and why that matters); the lawsuit that could kill Gawker.

Vox Sentences is written by Dylan Matthews and Dara Lind.

TOP NEWS

Michiganders for Bernie Sanders

Scott Olson/Getty Images

• Bernie Sanders won Michigan's primary last night — a state in which polls had him down 20 points to Hillary Clinton.

• The result, as Nate Silver says, is one of the biggest polling errors in primary history.

  [FiveThirtyEight / Nate Silver]

• What went wrong? Well, in the micro sense, pollsters failed to take independent voters into account and underestimated the turnout of young voters.

  [Vox / Jeff Stein]

• More broadly, Sanders supporters argue, the quantitative tools that political analysts are using to determine who's ahead in the race are based on assumptions that the status quo will persist — which is exactly the theory Sanders is running against.

  [Salon / Daniel Denvir]

• So while Sanders is still behind in delegates — and actually fell even further behind last night, since he lost Mississippi by more than he won Michigan — his supporters say that's missing the point.

  [FiveThirtyEight]

• Meanwhile, Donald Trump had a fantastic night. Not only did he win 3 of 4 primaries, but his competitors — especially John Kasich and double especially Marco Rubio — looked weak. Sad!

  [Vox / Andrew Prokop]

• Rubio, for what it's worth, is so dead in the water that his rallies look like cheerleading squad practices.

  [The Gateway Pundit / Jim Hoft]

#FreedKesha?

Larry Busacca/Getty Images

• The entertainment publication the Wrap reported this morning that Sony plans to fire music producer Dr. Luke.

  [The Wrap / Matt Donnelly]

• A judge recently sided with the producer on a preliminary injunction in a suit filed against him by former protégé Kesha, who alleged he raped her. (Kesha is still under contract to him.)

  [Slate / Jesse Dorris]

• According to the Wrap, Sony is fed up with the legal and PR headache caused by the suit.

• Dr. Luke's lawyer says the Wrap report is bunk.

  [Time / Nolan Feeney]

• Furthermore, since Kesha is under contract to Dr. Luke as an individual as well as to Sony, it's not clear that Sony's dismissal would actually free Kesha.

  [Fusion / Kelsey McKinney]

• That doesn't mean the dismissal would be meaningless. It would be a sign that other women in the industry can actually cause change by speaking out in solidarity — as many female musicians did with Kesha.

  [Vox / Caroline Framke]

• And it would be good news for women in other industries, including academia, who are beginning to go public with the constant realities of sexual harassment in their fields.

  [NYT / A. Hope Jahren]

Hulk v. Gawk

Gerardo Mora/Getty Images

• This week, a Florida judge is hearing a $100 million lawsuit brought by Terry Bollea — better known as Hulk Hogan — against the new-media company Gawker for publishing a sex tape of Bollea in 2012.

  [Vox / Michelle Hackman]

• Bollea has argued that because he is not in fact Hulk Hogan, a private sex tape is an invasion of the privacy of a non-public figure.

  [NPR / Merrit Kennedy]

• Gawker's argument is that the First Amendment protects it broadly, and that this could have unsettling implications for other journalism about the doings of public figures.

  [Vox / Michelle Hackman]

• That might be true. But the immediate existential threat is to Gawker, which is facing steep legal costs (and would likely go into bankruptcy if forced to pay the $100 million).

  [The Guardian / Nicky Woolf]

• Even if Gawker survives in name, some believe the Hogan suit (and other high-profile fights over Gawker publishing about private lives) has made the company, once famous for taking no crap from anyone, a little more risk-averse.

  [Vox / Alex Abad-Santos]

• Last summer, Gawker founder Nick Denton famously said he wanted the site to be "20 percent nicer." The irony is that maybe, just maybe, a 20 percent nicer Gawker would never have posted the Hogan tape at all.

  [Capital New York / Peter Sterne]

MISCELLANEOUS

Straight Americans in 2009 were about half as likely to marry co-workers as their 1990 counterparts were. [Washington Post / Roberto Ferdman]

• Public health advocates sometimes sell breastfeeding by calling it "natural." That approach could backfire.

  [Slate / Elissa Strauss]

• Eclipsed, a new play starring Lupita Nyong'o, appears to be the first Broadway production with an all-female creative team. In 2016.

  [NY Mag / Bennett Marcus]

• TIL that the Trump family originates from the same German village as the Heinz ketchup dynasty.

  [The Guardian / Kate Connolly]

• A leftist defense of the Coen brothers' (delightful) Hail Caesar!, which "upholds basic Marxist premises."

  [Jacobin / Eileen Jones]

VERBATIM

"Due to an oversight involving a haphazardly-installed Chrome extension during the editing process, the name Donald Trump was erroneously replaced with the phrase 'Someone With Tiny Hands' when this story originally published." [Wired / Jason Tanz]

• "The only sequel to Mad Men that I can imagine is continuing the story of Sally Draper. I want to know what happens to her."

  [Matt Weiner to W / Lynn Hirschberg]

• "Why did I think living alone would be some kind of romantic ideal? Why did I think I’d be living like Carrie Bradshaw when my bathroom looks more like Ilana Glazer’s?"

  [The Guardian / Ruth Spencer]

• "The wonderful thing about Macdonald was that he relished this kind of abuse. He liked the smell of napalm in the morning, and wore it like after-shave."

  [NYT / Dwight Garner]

• "Few books risk such damage to the public understanding of science as those by Oliver James."

  [Spectator / Stuart Richie]

WATCH THIS

Prescription painkillers now kill more Americans than any illegal drug [YouTube / Johnny Harris and German Lopez]

Vox / Johnny Harris

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