Subject: Re: polls and politics From: JDLas@aol.com Date: Wed, 28 Aug 1996 00:20:47 -0400

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S. Finer raises interesting observations in two recent postings on polls.
On Aug. 22 he wrote:

>Newspapers and broadcasters report unreliable polls all the time.  yet
>they still claim to be responsible.

>There are several organizations, including universities, on the web that
>use unscientific web polls, i.e. with self selected samples, yet
>newspapers routinely cite their results..... are the newspapers being
>irresponsible by doing this? 

I'd have to see a specific example, but in general, any journalism story that
cites a poll ought to report the poll's methodology and the sampling error.
You bet.  As to claims that newspapers do so all the time, I think that's
probably exaggerated.  (At least it's a rare occurrence in the half dozen
dailies I read.)  But hey, it's only the media we're beating up on, right?

But S. Finer also makes a good point in his 8-27 posting:

>If there is any serious news coming out of these conventions, I am hard
>pressed to identify it.  All I see are Hollywood-style, content-less,
media opps......

>real political positions are buried in the language of legislative
proposals.....while PR position statements frequently belie the actual
>policy positions in bills, Exec. orders, pleadings, etc....

>journalists should unravel this obfuscation, but they are far more
>interested in ephemeral, minute to minute horse-race patter....

>too bad, ....people deserve better.

As a newspaper editor (who has not the slightest involvement with any
publication's political coverage), I couldn't agree more.  What's the point
of daily tracking polls, which ABC, the Washington Post and others are doing
this week?  Everyone knows the Democrats will get a slight bump in the polls
from the convention, just as the Republicans did in San Diego.  It has
happened at every convention in polling history.  So where is the news in
that?

Give us analysis of where the two parties' policies will be taking the
country.  Show us specific, concrete examples of how these policies will make
a real difference in the lives of ordinary Americans.

If the news media did that, then fine, throw in a little of the horse-race
handicapping too.  It's fun, after all. 

But it annoys the hell out of me when I hear Ted Koppel and others say
there's no news coming out of these conventions just because there's no
red-meat conflict or drama or divisions, which is as limited a vision of news
as can be imagined.  Get off your butts, national political correspondents,
and go do some good old-fashioned reporting! 

jd lasica 


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To: "S. Finer" , online-news@planetarynews.com