Skepticism is a Virtue

Michael Gartner, journalist, lawyer, and former head of NBC News suggests asking yourself the following ten questions as you read, watch, and surf:

1. Is the guest expert being paid?

2. Who posted the information? Unless this is clear, it's useless.

3. Who stated the information? Anonymous quotes don't count.

4. What was the question? In any poll, stop reading or listening if the reporter doesn't give the wording of the question, the sample size, and the date of the poll.

5. What is the answer? If an allegation is made in a story, is the reply included in the story as well? If not, it's one-sided.

6. Why should I believe you? Any opinion piece is simply that, an opinion unless the writer has incontestable facts.

7. How can I believe you? If the reporter's on a talk show, touting partisan politics, how can he/she be writing a column next week that supposed to be straight news?

8. Does anyone believe this? Absolutely ignore person-on-the-street interviews or focus group stories that purport to speak for the state or for the nation.

9. Are the words loaded? I "say," you, "allege." My friends are "associates," yours are cronies," etc.

10. Do I really care? Because the headline is large doesn't mean the issue is important.

Source: Michael Gartner

It's official: Polls are Bogus

In his illuminating book. The Opinion Makers: An Insider Exposes the Truth Behind the Polls
David W. Moore, who has been praised as a "scholarly crusader" by the New York Times, reveals that "pollsters don't report public opinion, they manufacture it."

"Drawing on over a decade's experience at the Gallup Poll and a distinguished academic career in survey research, Moore describes the questionable tactics pollsters use to create poll-driven news stories-including force-feeding respondents, slanting question wording, and ignoring public ignorance on even the most arcane issues. More than proof that the numbers do lie, The
Opinion Makers clearly and convincingly spells out how urgent it is that we make polls deliver on their promise to monitor, not manipulate, the pulse of democracy.

What's worse, says the author, today's polls "report the whims rather than the will of the people due to an intrinsic methodological problem: poll results don't differentiate between those who express deeply held views and those who have hardly, if at all, thought about an issue. Thus, respondents are compelled to provide an ill-considered, top-of-mind response because the method does not offer the option of expressing no opinion."

Moore says that forced-choice polls not only distort public opinion, they create a legitimacy spin cycle, which damages U.S. democracy...

NY Times: Serial Malpractice

“There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.” - Benjamin Disraeli, cited by Mark Twain.

Peter J. Smith, writing for LifeSiteNews.com, explains how The New York Times, with a rich tradition of misconstruing data “has once again published another 'hit piece' on the institution of marriage, alleging that for ‘the first time more American women are living without a husband than with one.’ However, US census data for 2005 shows that the January 16th front-page story in the New York Times is just another disturbing showcase of the Times’ tolerance for ‘journalistic malpractice’.”

First, a look at the offense: “For what experts say is probably the first time,” writes New York Times writer Sam Roberts, on the front page, “more American women are living without a husband than with one, according to a New York Times analysis of census results.” …“In 2005, 51 percent of women said they were living without a spouse, up from 35 percent in 1950 and 49 percent in 2000,” Roberts writes. He then states that married couples now represent a minority of all American households and “the trend could ultimately shape social and workplace policies, including the ways government and employers distribute benefits.”

Smith counters emphatically: “The plain truth is that Roberts’ findings are at variance with U.S. census reports for 2005, which demonstrate a far different picture from the profiles selected by Roberts of single women ‘delighting in their new found freedom.’”

“According to the 2005 report ‘Marital Status of the Population by Sex and Age’, the United States is not yet a culture that has discarded the institution of marriage, where 60.4% of men and 56.9% of women over 18 years old are married.

Smith points out how Roberts created his own “analysis” by using the Census Bureau’s “Living Arrangements of Persons 15 Years Old and Over by Selected Characteristics”, by including in his 51% figure of women living without a spouse: unmarried teenage and college girls still living with their parents, women whose husbands work out of town, are institutionalized, or are separated from husbands serving in Afghanistan and Iraq!

Smith offers the facts: “Among marriageable women over 18 years old, 56.9% of women are married, with 53% having a spouse present, 1.4% with a spouse absent, 9.9% widowed, and 11.5% divorced. Yet, 67.3% of women 30-34, and 70.5% of women 35-39 are married, a far cry from the profiles of women offered by the Times of women finding fulfillment outside marriage.”

“It’s one of a series of articles the New York Times has run… playing games with numbers in a misleading and dishonest way, each one of them having the same point: marriage is over, marriage is finished, nobody wants to get married anymore, people are happier not getting married,” talk show host Michael Medved told his radio audience, accusing the Times of committing “journalistic malpractice”

“…97% of women between the ages of 15 and 19 are never married!” observes Medved. “What does it tell you when he’s including girls living home with their parents as single women and then uses that to create this lie that the majority of women are unmarried?”

My take on all this? Managing information and communication is tough enough these days without purported trusted news sources like the New York Times publishing erroneous reports.