Then I came across what in my view is the single most biased and dishonest public opinion survey I’ve ever seen.
CBS News released a poll that read, “Most voters following the events regarding Senator (STET) Barack Obama and Rev. (STET) Jeremiah Wright think Obama’s speech was a success.”
This lead sentence in the press release appeared in media outlets all over the world. It gave the impression that Obama’s speech on Wright had ended any dispute or controversy about Obama being associated with Wright and his many inflammatory comments.
Maybe over time that will prove true. And Obama’s speech was an impressive one, no doubt.
But that’s not the point. Most Americans didn’t hear the speech. Most have only heard bits and pieces about this whole business about Obama and his pastor of many years.
So, rather than survey registered voters in the customary way — by randomly finding voters around the nation and asking them their impressions of the issue — CBS instead adopted the most curious polling methodology I’ve ever some across. It was probably the only methodology possible on this subject that could reach what was apparently the network’s desired outcome.
CBS didn’t randomly phone registered voters. They didn’t weight the poll for age, race, gender and political affiliation. Instead, they chose to poll a group of people prior to Obama’s speech about Wright. The poll asked respondents their opinions about Wright and his views.
Then CBS later re-polled the exact same group to gauge their reactions to Obama’s speech. Based on those two separate pollings, the network extrapolated the result that “Sixty-nine percent of voters who have heard or read about Obama’s speech think he did a good job addressing the issue of race relations.”
Unbelievable! Had my firm employed these types of polling tactics, pundits and alleged “polling experts” would have torn us to pieces.
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March 26, 2008
Poll-ease! [Dan Collins]
29 Comments ::: Post a comment »RSS feed for comments on this post. TrackBack URI: http://proteinwisdom.com/wp-trackback.php?p=11600 Leave a commentIf you want to leave a feedback to this post or to some other user´s comment, simply fill out the form below. |
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Comment by Cowboy on 3/26 @ 7:01 pm #
OK, that goes beyond bias!
…great catch, Karl.
Comment by B Moe on 3/26 @ 7:05 pm #
psst, Cowboy, it was Dan…
Comment by Dan Collins on 3/26 @ 7:08 pm #
Don’t interrupt him; he’s on a roll.
Comment by Cowboy on 3/26 @ 7:08 pm #
…I hate it when I do that.
DAN–GREAT CATCH!!!
Comment by Dan Collins on 3/26 @ 7:10 pm #
It was coming straight at my face. I put it out there, now watch Karl put it into context.
Comment by MC on 3/26 @ 7:20 pm #
Erm, seems like pretty standard MSM polling strategy to me. Educate me about polling method disclosure Dan.
Comment by nishizonoshinji on 3/26 @ 7:23 pm #
classic sampling bias.
Comment by happyfeet on 3/26 @ 7:33 pm #
It’s a recontact. They misrepresented the results, though, MC. It’s worthless data. It’s like a copy test, really, but with totally botched methodology. The results are only of conceivable interest to Obama’s speechwriters, but really, after the speech was given that data had no value whatsoever. They would have wanted to test the speech before it was given, and really, they would have used a dial to do minute-by-minutes, not like how they did. CBS did this on purpose, cause it’s really duh.
Comment by RTO Trainer on 3/26 @ 7:34 pm #
It’s not a poll. It’s a focus group.
Comment by Jeffersonian on 3/26 @ 8:54 pm #
Is Rather consulting over at the Tiffany Network?
Comment by Cincinnatus on 3/26 @ 9:23 pm #
I can’t recall a single line of that speech, and neither can they.
Comment by thor on 3/26 @ 9:27 pm #
Contextual framing with Crayons, I can’t wait!
Comment by Big Bang Hunter (pumping you up) on 3/27 @ 5:04 am #
- If he isn’t he should be.
- What the poll didn’t mention is that 89% of the people polled by CBS thought they were filing out a customer satisfaction survey for the municiple bus and subway system.
Comment by Mikey NTH on 3/27 @ 5:44 am #
Here is much more reliable information, from Michael Barone.
http://www.usnews.com/blogs/barone/2008/03/25/polls-show-obama-damaged-by-reverend-wright.html
Comment by B Moe on 3/27 @ 5:50 am #
Contextual framing with Crayons, I can’t wait!
So it thor the only person on the site who has been impressed by nishi’s intellectual prowess?
Comment by Mikey NTH on 3/27 @ 6:12 am #
B Moe, it sort of sounds like thor is going to be to Karl what Doyle is to Ann Althouse.
You know, a very strange person who professes to dislike the person posting and to hate everything that person writes, and his dislike is so deep that he can’t stay away for a minute.
thor, I’m just telling you – no man crushes here. You want that, go over to Ace of Spades.
Comment by J.Peden on 3/27 @ 8:16 am #
The Polish are looking progressively betterer and betterer.
Comment by thor on 3/27 @ 8:32 am #
I downloaded that comedy DVD called Gay Niggers From Outer Space only to find it’s not, to my dismay, funny. I don’t want to like Norah Jones; I don’t usually go for the mix of melancholy melodies, furry tits and a bush that’d make a chia pet blush. But Norah’s good and I like her. Just callin’ it like I see it. From that Karl would write a 2000-word conclusion that I hate black people and would stand in line to eat Norah Jones’ balls, if she had any. It’s all too pre-ordained in one direction, a.k.a. blinded by your own spunk.
Comment by Enoch_Root - TWP also on 3/27 @ 11:12 am #
erm – thor. keep the money-shots to yerself, you ass-clown. did you come here for objective urinalism? for that, you’ve got CNN, MSNBC, etc. Now stuff it in yer cornhole, jag bag.
Comment by Enoch_Root - TWP also on 3/27 @ 11:15 am #
you heard me.
Comment by thor on 3/27 @ 4:07 pm #
Yes, your voice is heard, and I still say you’re licking the spunk out of your eyes like a lizard. If someone has to be the proverbial Matthew Arnold, the critic of the critic, then I’ll volunteer. That you’d continually buck up to suck up only proves you’ve eaten so much bad tripe that you can’t tell when the tripe is being re-amplified until it tastes like soggy Kung Pao chicken at the Lucky #3 Chinese All-U-Can-Eat buffet, a.k.a. General Tao’s spunk chicken.
It’s not that I disagree with the base level of objectivity (lack thereof, actually) either, especially as it pertains to Barack Obama, it’s just that when the pretty girl joins a new Girl Scout troop there’s always a rumor that starts that goes they had to take the new girl to the hospital to get her stomach pumped of 72-ounces of Rod Stewart’s spunk. Barack’s a Marxist, a BLT’er, an ally of Hamas because he’s the new kid easily smeared with cheap gossip. It’s the same routine without the box of $4.00 box of thin mints.
Comment by Pablo on 3/27 @ 4:55 pm #
New kid easily smeared or previously blank slate who wants to be POTUS? BTW, thor, you forgot Rezko, Bill Ayers and M’chelle. And the cocaine. And Halliburton, but not Kyoto.
Comment by Mikey NTH on 3/27 @ 4:59 pm #
I once did a post on coldfury linking to the National Council on Public Polls. http://www.ncpp.org/
The questions a journalist should ask are good ones, and help sift the stupid and self-serving from the worthwhile. (Did youknow that 4 out of 5 dentists recommend that their patients who chew gum chew Trident? Did you think Pioneer Sugar paid for that poll? If you do, please send me all the pieces of green paper in your wallet with the picture of Andrew Jackson on them.)
thor, just letting you know. You’re heading into TTP territory, where anyone with sense just scrolls past to the next comment. I’m starting to do that one sentence in on yours. Remember, ‘Friends Do Not Let Friends TTP’.
Comment by thor TWP on 3/27 @ 5:31 pm #
TTP = Totally Turned Partisan?
OK, but show mw where, here, anyone is asking Barack Obama any questions. There’s gross exaggeration, speculation, projection and mystic connect-the-dottery and a little of this type a ten-word caveating – To be fair, Obama says he stands with Israel, and Obama has a few pro-Isreal advisors… – left to swim in a 1500-word sea of paranoid gossip.
Comment by JD TWP on 3/27 @ 5:40 pm #
Baracky does not answer questions. See … Rezko presser.
Comment by Pablo on 3/27 @ 5:42 pm #
Dude, he already answered, like, eight questions. Leave the man alone.
Comment by Penguins on 3/27 @ 6:05 pm #
@ #24
Why would I pose a question to BO via PW?
Are you offering to pass them up to him?
Comment by Penguins on 3/27 @ 6:06 pm #
Sorry, “Him.”
Comment by McGehee on 3/27 @ 6:51 pm #
That’s because he’s spoofing Nishi’s “mind”-set.
I hope…