REcommended!

Just happened to be having a late lunch watching MSNBC "reviewing" a Gallup poll of "likely voters" with McCain up slightly (margin of error not shown).

MOre info on the inane Gallup/USATOday Poll:

1. IT reports LIKELY VOTERS - not REGISTERED VOTERS. And in this area, it contradicts every other majojr poll (where LIKELY VOTERS give Obama higher lwads).

2. The poll surveyed FEWER THAN 800 people. The major polls all surveyed between 2000 and 4000 voters.

3. Third-party candidates are NOT included - another omission that favors McCain.

What we are seeing is the certain segments of the media purposefully highlighting only those poll results that try to indicate a race that is closer than it actually is. Anything to achieve the purpose of their existence 9selling alcohol and male enhancement products) - instead of doing their job (reporting the actual news.)

Paddy Chayevsky must be rolling in his grave.

Paddy Chayevsky must be rolling in his grave.

And Joseph Goebbels would be proud!

Manufacture the news for ratings. Parse every word and report every poll.

I have given my television the rest of the summer off.

Great post.

Recommended.

Great (if depressing) post. Rec'd.

If you haven't yet seen it, check out Seth Colter Walls' picking apart of the USAToday/Gallup spurious `likely voter` polling

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/07/28/two-gallup-polls-one-day_n_115473.html

Part of the issue here is that polls are now the news themselves.

This is very bad as I pointed out when Fox had it's push-poll a few days ago. It essentially allows a news organization make-up a story, based on the poll, and report is as a form of reality.

The constant navel gazing and polling has come back to bite us.

Chuck Todd was on "Morning Joe" earlier today. Todd had communicated with Gallup about the disparity in it's simultaneous registered and likely voter polls. Todd stated that Gallup could not explain why the two polls differed by such a wide margin. In Todd's words, the Gallup data was making the polling organizations a laughng stock. Polling was very difficult in this election cycle.

The next segment on "Morning Joe" was Joe Scarborough asking for Pat Buchanan's opinion on the political implications of McCain being ahead by 4 points the the Gallup/USA Today poll.............

The dumbest press corps, dumbest President, and dumbest Congress all hitting simultaneously. A tsunami of stupidity.

And a word of exposure to the oft-cited and curiously exulted Real Clear Politics site.
A a right-wing site, just like Rasmussen.
They still have not posted the national poll by Research 2000 nor have they included it in their average.
On the other hand, they post every one of Research 2000 red state polls, including polls of states no one cares about.

This is a great discussion, although I confess I'm at work and just had time to skim through the comments.

However, it raises a practical question in my mind. How can we do more than discuss among ourselves? What is the best way to make this a more visible issue, something that would force the network news people (not the bubble-heads in front of the camera, but their producers and the anchors) to report on the bias this show as a news story?

I assume a direct frontal assault is out of the question, but what about raising this with some respected industry organs, such as Editor and Publisher? How about cross-posting this all over the known blogger universe, including on HuffPo, Kos, and even Red State?

Bring the noise, in other words. This is an issue that underlies a lot of the potential for abuse an bad journalism we'll see from here on out.

Wow, some time away and it's a lovely breath of fresh air to return [as much as am able] to TPM

1) MANY thanks for that post, MsJoanne. Added my rec, tho you clearly have lots already. For those of us with very limited time at present, I found it encouraging that things are not as bad as painted and thank you for taking the time to do the research.
2) Thanks to the writer who recommended the HuffPost article. Will check that out when I can
3)kudos and a tone of laughs to the writer who stated that fake reporting was designed to sell"alcohol and male enhancement products"
4) and ya just GOTTA love the creativity of a signator named "terrorist fist jab nation" :)

and BTW rmrd000000's story on Chuck Todd's take as to polling situation was particularly interesting for those of us w/o news this last three weeks. C.T. is one of a very few bright stars on major networks and I am grateful he is out there for watchers to learn from. One cannot expect too much more from Joe S other than stupid Q followups in line with his narrow and idiotic script -so his followup Q to Buchanan comes as no surprise.

thx again to all for your insights...

Rec'd. Great post. We need more scrutiny of the MSM attempts to game the lection to keep it close and/or help McJerk.

do you constantly take your pulse when you are running?

Some runners (and cyclists) effectively do, training with heart rate monitors that record their heart rate, average, maximum, etc.

When looked at over a consistent time frame, however, much of the noise averages out. You shouldn't overreact to any one poll - that could easily be an outlier or other error - but when looked at regularly polling at least gives you some idea of where the electorate is now, and how opinion may be changing over time.

If I were running a campaign, I'd pay very close attention to polling. I don't think it should dictate policy positions, but it can be quite useful to try to measure how well received the campaign's message is by the electorate.

Now for political junkies, like myself, however, polling obsession is strictly for entertainment purposes only.