{"id":10389,"date":"2007-04-02T15:48:20","date_gmt":"2007-04-02T19:48:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/archives\/10389.html"},"modified":"2007-04-02T15:48:20","modified_gmt":"2007-04-02T19:48:20","slug":"adventures-in-poll-question-wording","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/adventures-in-poll-question-wording\/","title":{"rendered":"Adventures in poll-question wording"},"content":{"rendered":"

No one knows how to stack a national poll with loaded questions like Fox News does. It’s almost impressive — most news outlets go out of their way to ask neutral questions, but the Republicans’ network artfully does the opposite. FNC is practically offering professors of quantitative analysis case studies in what not to do in a poll.<\/p>\n

Eric Kleefeld notes<\/a> that the new Fox News poll<\/a> (.pdf), for example, tackles the prosecutor purge scandal.<\/p>\n

Do you think a Congressional investigation into the dismissal of the eight federal prosecutors is a good use of taxpayer money?<\/p>\n

Yes 39%
\nNo 51%<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Frankly, giving that wording, it’s a pleasant surprise the results were this close.<\/p>\n

Real news outlets have asked poll respondents<\/a> about whether they believe the firings were politically-motivated and whether White House officials should testify under oath. You know, pertinent<\/i> details related to the issue at hand. But not our friends at Fox; they believe the key is asking people about a cost-benefit analysis. (Oddly, Fox News did not ask Americans whether the war in Iraq “is a good use of taxpayer money.” Maybe next time.)<\/p>\n

Wait, it gets better.
\n
\nThe poll then asked respondents about institutional influence over war policy.<\/p>\n

Who do you trust more to decide when U.S. troops should leave Iraq — U.S. military commanders or Members of Congress?<\/p>\n

Commanders 69%
\nMembers of Congress 18%<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Again, given these choices, the fact that nearly one-in-five Americans prefer members of Congress suggests a) a lot of respondents were messing with what they saw as a slanted poll; or b) really love Congress right now. Fox could have asked the same question with the president vs. lawmakers, but that would be far less likely to produce the desired results.<\/p>\n

And then, the creme de la creme.<\/p>\n

After the 2004 presidential election, the president of the left-wing Moveon.org political action committee made the following comment about the Democratic Party, ‘In the last year, grassroots contributors like us gave more than $300 million to the Kerry campaign and the DNC, and proved that the Party doesn’t need corporate cash to be competitive. Now it’s our Party: we bought it, we own it and we’re going to take it back.’ Do you think the Democratic Party should allow a grassroots organization like Moveon.org to take it over or should it resist this type of takeover?<\/p>\n

Should allow 16%
\nShould resist 61%<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It’s refreshing when Fox News drops the pretense; too often they protest and demand recognition as a real news outlet. Examples like these are helpful in highlighting just what a joke the network really is.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

No one knows how to stack a national poll with loaded questions like Fox News does. It’s almost impressive — most news outlets go out of their way to ask neutral questions, but the Republicans’ network artfully does the opposite. FNC is practically offering professors of quantitative analysis case studies in what not to do […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10389","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10389","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10389"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10389\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10389"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10389"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10389"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}