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Thread: Push Polls - the results depend on how the question is asked ?

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    Banned Melonie's Avatar
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    Default Push Polls - the results depend on how the question is asked ?

    "From the wording of that Newsweek poll question:

    “"U.S. Senate rules allow 41 senators to mount a filibuster – refusing to end debate and agree to vote – to block judicial nominees. In the past, this tactic has been used by both Democrats and Republicans to prevent certain judicial nominees from being confirmed. Senate Republican leaders – whose party is now in the majority – want to take away this tactic by changing the rules to require only 51 votes, instead of 60, to break a filibuster. Would you approve or disapprove of changing Senate rules to take away the filibuster and allow all of George W. Bush’s judicial nominees to get voted on by the Senate?”

    I wonder what the numbers would have been had the question been asked thusly:

    “U.S. Senate rules allow 41 senators to mount a filibuster – refusing to end debate and agree to vote – to block votes. In the past, this tactic has never been used by neither Democrats nor Republicans to prevent certain judicial nominees from being seated on a court. Senate Republican leaders – whose party is now in the majority – want to take away this tactic by changing the rules to prevent filibusters of judicial nominations and ensure them an up or down vote. Would you approve or disapprove of changing Senate rules to take away the filibuster and allow all of George W. Bush’s judicial nominees to get voted on by the Senate?”

    I suspect the numbers would be markedly different.

    This is why a poll should avoid making spin-worthy statements in the phrasing of the question. A much more sound phrasing than either the one used or the one suggested above would have been:

    “Some of President Bush’s judicial nominees are being filibustered by the Democrats. Should all of George W. Bush’s judicial nominees to get up or down votes by the Senate?”

    Gerry Daly

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    Featured Member Amethyst's Avatar
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    Default Re: Push Polls - the results depend on how the question is asked ?

    “Some of President Bush’s judicial nominees are being filibustered by the Democrats. Should all of George W. Bush’s judicial nominees to get up or down votes by the Senate?”
    C'mon, that way loaded too, Melonie, by virtue of leaving out info. The best way to alter this question would be to simply leave out what party's doing what and change some of the "spin" words:

    “"U.S. Senate rules allow 41 senators to mount a filibuster – refusing to end debate and agree to vote – to block judicial nominees. In the past, this PROCEDURE has been used by both Democrats and Republicans to BLOCK DEBATABLE judicial nominees from being confirmed. Senate leaders want to take away this PROCEDURE by MODIFYING the rules to require only 51 votes, instead of 60, to break a filibuster. Would you SUPPORT MODIFYING Senate rules to take away the filibuster, which would allow all of the judicial nominees to get voted on by the Senate?”

    Althought a more accurate statement would read:

    Historically, U.S. Senate rules allow 41 senators to mount a filibuster – the refusal to end MEANINGFUL debate and BE FORCED TO VOTE– to block CONTROVERSIAL judicial nominees of Bush. In the past, this PROCEDURE has been used by both Democrats and Republicans to prevent certain judicial nominees from being confirmed. DESPITE TENSIONS BOILING OVER IN AN ALREADY POLARIZED NATION, Senate Republican leaders – whose party is now in the majority – want to LIMIT THE DEBATE ON THE JUDICIAL NOMINEES BY PURSUING THE "NUCLEAR OPTION" AND SEIZING ABSOLUTE POWER by changing the rules to require only 51 votes, instead of 60, to break a filibuster AND ALLOW THEIR PRESIDENT'S NOMINEES TO BE PUSHED THROUGH. Would you approve or disapprove of changing Senate rules to take away the filibuster and FORCING ALL of George W. Bush’s judicial nominees to get voted on by the Senate?”

    But that's just my $0.02


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    Featured Member Destiny's Avatar
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    Default Re: Push Polls - the results depend on how the question is asked ?

    Personally, I think it is unethical for all these news organizations to be doing polls. Reporters are supposed to report the news, not create news. If you think about it, news organizations have every incentive to create these push polls, it makes for a better story. I do give Newsweek credit for actually printing the question that they asked, some organizations will do a poll, make up a headline and never tell you what they actually asked people. These type of polls add nothing to our knowledge of people's opinions and lessen the credibility of the media that publish them. The most accurate polls are the ones we never see. They are done for the White House, the Republicans and Democrats. These groups have a vested interest in finding out exactly what the American public thinks. A well known example. In the 2000 election, when all the news media gave Florida to Al Gore, the Bush campaign called them up and emphatically stated that Bush would win Florida. They were right. The results of these internal polls are usually shared with only a few members of the party though. However, the other day I did see a little article that said that the Republican's own poll showed that a large marjority of the public agreed that, "all of President Bush's juduical nominees deserve an up or down vote on the senate floor". Expect to see that phrase tossed around a lot in the future.
    Dancing is wonderful training for girls, it's the first way you learn to guess what a man is going to do before he does it. ~Christopher Morley, Kitty Foyle

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    Banned Melonie's Avatar
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    Default Re: Push Polls - the results depend on how the question is asked ?

    Personally, I think it is unethical for all these news organizations to be doing polls. Reporters are supposed to report the news, not create news. If you think about it, news organizations have every incentive to create these push polls, it makes for a better story.
    Arguably, it goes even further than a desire to simply create news for the sake of sales/ratings. Some contend that as part of a political agenda it is often necessary to create news which supports or contradicts particular political positions which the news media editors wish to promote or discourage, when the actual existance of any such news is questionable.

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    Veteran Member Hello~Kitty's Avatar
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    Default Re: Push Polls - the results depend on how the question is asked ?

    Quote Originally Posted by Melonie
    Some contend that as part of a political agenda it is often necessary to create news which supports or contradicts particular political positions which the news media editors wish to promote or discourage.
    LMAO! But ofcourse that description doesn't include your favored National Review though, huh ?

    Anywho~


    (snip)several recent surveys for public broadcasting have shown that most viewers and listeners admire what's on now. More than half of PBS's viewers say they find its news more "trustworthy" than the commercial stations'. Public television and radio programs like "Frontline," "The NewsHour With Jim Lehrer" and "All Things Considered" have even higher "favorable" ratings (snip)

    Mr. Tomlinson has hired a staff member from the Bush White House to set up guidelines for the ombudsmen hired to critique shows on public broadcasting. And he is trying to hire a State Department official, a former co-chairwoman of the Republican National Committee, as the Corporation for Public Broadcasting's president and chief executive.

    Although he has insisted that he does not want to politicize PBS or cut any programs, Mr. Tomlinson has managed to spread the word throughout the PBS community that he does not like anything that he considers too anti-corporate, anti-White House or anti-Republican.* For journalists whose basic code is to "speak truth to power," this is not good news: those are the main powers in the country.

    Their real fear, an understandable one at this stage, is that Mr. Tomlinson and his supporters have a larger agenda - to "hollow out" public broadcasting and fill it with programming that suits their political agenda. And if public broadcasting becomes too political to suit all but the most loyal Republicans or too boring in the name of balance, that could mean the slow death of such broadcasting, which could have been the goal all along. * (snip)

    * added boldface

    http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/04/op...rssnyt&emc=rss

    Personally, I like having choices. I don't want an all rightwing or leftwing media.... I value being able to change the channel and get a different pov...... ofcourse it's opinions like that which sometimes gets me improperly labled things like a "liberal loon"
    Example of discrimination (Imho):

    the only prudent way to treat Islamics in the US and western europe today is along the same vein as Russians and Eastern Europeans were treated during the 'cold war' days - with some degree of suspicion warranted until proven otherwise !

    http://www.stripperweb.com/forum/showthread.php?t=44590




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    Veteran Member myssi's Avatar
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    Default Re: Push Polls - the results depend on how the question is asked ?

    News organizations, etc. usually hire an independent polling company... however the customer usually has most of the say in what question is asked... but if they pay to ask a loaded question they are simply paying to get the result they wanted. All this is one reason why people should never pay any attention to published polls. The most accurate ones are the privately commissioned ones that do not publically broadcast the results. Another huge factor in polling accuracy has to do with sampling (selection, size, etc.). People may also be surprised to know that most national polls only have a sample size of about 1200 (give or take a couple of hundred) people in order to statistically reduce the error rate to +/- 2 or 3%.... 1000 respondents get you about a +/- 5% error rate. Most people would also be surprised to know that polls are slightly 'weighted' in order to achieve the demographic balance they should have recovered. For example, if I do a phone poll across the US of 1200 to 1500 people, I should recover about 12% self identified black respondents, etc. about 50% should be male, another 50% should be female (not quite, but close enough)... I just want eligible/registered adult voters probably... I'll do random digit dialing and not use a list...throw out uncompleted questionaires...call cell phones too...polling is exempt from do not call lists by the way...I'll save my inflamatory questions for the end but rotate the order of the questions... try not too ask too many... allow Spanish language responses... make sure questions are asked with some voice inflection and not a boring monotone...encourage definitive responses by not saying that "don't know" is an option...I'll probably filter out pay-phones and prisons and military bases from my sample if I can.... of course if someone can't afford a phone they won't count. If I don't get the 50% male respondents in Nevada for example, I will weight the results from each male I did get to answer my questions by some small (hopefully) fraction (1.001 say). However, some weighting may get to be extreme... say every Asian respondent is weighted times 2 in order to get the right demographics (compared to most recent census results which may be outdated)... a sign that my sample was bad but I'm trying to fix it on the back end. The time of day I do my polling may also influence my results: if I call Texas at 8PM Central (but El Paso is on Mountain time and people may be eating and won't answer the phone at their 7PM) or try to get enough females in Delaware during the day... or any number of other variables, my poll may be slightly distorted. It really takes a lot of care to get things right. Especially a multi-day tracking poll that's geographically AND demographically sound each day of the rolling average... The polls you read in US Today, etc. are half-assed slapped together slip-shod amatuer jobs. Not even worth reading, especially when they don't even print the sample size or error rate or wording of the actual questions asked.
    Last edited by myssi; 05-04-2005 at 07:55 PM.

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    Banned Melonie's Avatar
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    Default Re: Push Polls - the results depend on how the question is asked ?

    (snip)several recent surveys for public broadcasting have shown that most viewers and listeners admire what's on now. More than half of PBS's viewers say they find its news more "trustworthy" than the commercial stations'. Public television and radio programs like "Frontline," "The NewsHour With Jim Lehrer" and "All Things Considered" have even higher "favorable" ratings (snip)
    Well, let's see ... that's like saying that the majority of National Review readers do not find it too conservative, and that the majority of NY Times readers do not find it too liberal, or the majority of Hustler readers do not find it too raunchy ! There is one difference though, an important one. National Review readers are not forced to buy subscriptions to the NY Times, NY Times readers are not forced to buy subscriptions to the National Review, but every taxpayer in America is forced to buy a 'subscription' to PBS and NPR !

    - in other words, any 'private' publication has the right and ability to publish any sort of 'tripe' it chooses to, and then takes its financial chances in regard to paying readership. However, PBS and NPR are fed from the public trough, which in my way of thinking at least obligates them to avoid extreme viewpoints or at least present both extremes. However, a statistical analysis of PBS and NPR programming and commentary clearly shows that they are conveying one extreme viewpoint without equally representing the other extreme viewpoint, meaning that these gov't entities are taking a partisan stance in their reporting. Just because that partisan stance tended to agree with the party in power when these gov't agencies were founded/enlarged, and just because that partisan editorial policy was never seriously questioned in the past, does not mean they are making 'fair and balanced' use of taxpayer's money and does not mean that their inappropriate use of taxpayer's money should not be questioned now that the other political party is in power.

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    Veteran Member Hello~Kitty's Avatar
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    Default Re: Push Polls - the results depend on how the question is asked ?

    Quote Originally Posted by Melonie
    Well, let's see ... that's like saying that the majority of National Review readers do not find it too conservative, and that the majority of NY Times readers do not find it too liberal, or the majority of Hustler readers do not find it too raunchy ! There is one difference though, an important one. National Review readers are not forced to buy subscriptions to the NY Times, NY Times readers are not forced to buy subscriptions to the National Review, but every taxpayer in America is forced to buy a 'subscription' to PBS and NPR !
    Oh Please.... PBS gets like 10% of it's funding from the Gov and over 80% from ad space and viewer donations.

    And I guess no one else gets ANY money from Gov sources, huh ? Especially, not right leaning ones ofcourse.............Riiight :rolls eyes:

    Let us not forget the government-funded "journalism" such as the purported video " news" releases put out by the drug czar's office and the Department of Health and Human Services to the recently uncovered payments to columnists Armstrong Williams and Maggie Gallagher.

    I suppose it is just too difficult of a task for you NeoCons to just change the channel, huh ? Funny really since I don't seem to have a problem switching off FoxNews or Billy Graham specials.

    As for being forced to pay for things we don't support or agree with.... gotta point out that millions of Americans are being forced to pay for a war they don't agree with, but that's ok right ? I mean as long as something is not a so called "liberal" thing then it's all good, eh ........................
    Example of discrimination (Imho):

    the only prudent way to treat Islamics in the US and western europe today is along the same vein as Russians and Eastern Europeans were treated during the 'cold war' days - with some degree of suspicion warranted until proven otherwise !

    http://www.stripperweb.com/forum/showthread.php?t=44590




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