In regards to the predictions, it's important to understand that their role in it was the same as it is with the weather forecast: they're just reporting what people come up with.
Those people, the pollsters and aggregators, were indeed wrong with regards to the winner. It's however important to note that the polls were less than 3% off. It just happened to make quite a difference in the winner-take-all system.
538 was arguably more right than others: their model sensed the uncertainty and gave Trump a 30% chance of winning.
Compared to the NYT/WaPo/WSJ, the self-styled outsiders like The Intercept are incredibly biased, or just bad. It's sometimes hard to see how information flows, but barely any actual news starts at The Incept/Breitbart/HuffPost/etc.
Those people, the pollsters and aggregators, were indeed wrong with regards to the winner. It's however important to note that the polls were less than 3% off. It just happened to make quite a difference in the winner-take-all system.
538 was arguably more right than others: their model sensed the uncertainty and gave Trump a 30% chance of winning.
Compared to the NYT/WaPo/WSJ, the self-styled outsiders like The Intercept are incredibly biased, or just bad. It's sometimes hard to see how information flows, but barely any actual news starts at The Incept/Breitbart/HuffPost/etc.