Forgot to mention that I think kimtsu’s interpretation of the numbers is also questionsable. While it may be correct, and had the survey actually looked for that factor, would have been a number worthy of reporting we really don’t know much about the 28%. For all we know half of them think Bush is too liberal.
We really have no idea how those 28% compare with the 55% who didn’t watch and generally disagree with Bush’s priorities. We have no idea if they disagreed with his tax cut before the speech because that isn’t what they were asked.
And as you’ll see here, Rather, while frequently expressing disdain for polls, uses them rather frequently when they have negative things to say about Republicans.
Ned’s argument would seem to make very little sense, given these two pieces of evidence. Unless you believe that Rather and CBSNews “got religion” at the precise moment Bush’s poll numbers came out, and, for the first time, saw the information they provided as utterly meaningless.
You also have to buy that their initial story after the speech, the one with the ambivalent/skeptical coffee twins, was deemed a more accurate or reflective view of people’s reaction to the speech. It would seem far less scientific, and almost manufactured.
It’s a lot to buy. But it’s quite amusing to see some of you try.
The evidence quoted on that site has nothing whatsoever to do with the question at hand. If that is a fair sampling then I agree that it shows a bias but on its face none of the polls cited demonstrate the clear methodological errors present in the poll at hand.
The editorial suggests that this represents a change of philosophy for the network. They present no evidence that past polls included these particular errors which render the numbers meaningless nor do they present evidence that the network always publishes their polls even when determined to be misleading.
Accepting for the moment that previous polls used this exact format its pretty easy to see how they saw religion. Sometimes flawed methodology only jumps out at you when the numbers are so heavily skewed you can’t help but question them. Having said that I would love to see their poll results after Clinton’s last state of the union.
I still find it amusing that you could find any justification for reporting such trash.
Well, I couldn’t seem to access a story on it but according to search engines that found it CBS started out their print article saying “Americans have always liked President Clinton’s State of the Union speeches, and his 2000 presentation was no exception, according to a CBS News poll…”
On the other hand reviewing a couple of other polls I found on the speech I think I may have spotted the key to their conversion. The question asked of viewers was the far less politically loaded question of whether viewers reacted favorably. They didn’t ask whether people approved of specific controversial proposals.
My perception demonstrates nothing. The fact remains that their survey found a decidedly HIGH number of people supporting Bush’s plan yet they decided to report the exact opposite of what their survey showed. Period. Cease. No more discussion on that issue. Stop. Ixnay on the ebateday.
Or are you suggesting that they never held a survey which reached the 88% figure? Because if that’s your contention, I can’t possibly understand WHY you feel the need to debate the number “88”.
That should have been something the survey measured. If the survey DIDN’T measure that, that’s another example of shitty reporting.
Please provide proof aside from conjecture that only Bush supporters watched that speech. Unless you want to suggest that only Bush supporters care about what happens to the country.
They have been reporting “such garbage” since statistics have existed. Crappy argument, my friend.
THIS HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH THE POLL THAT RESULTED IN THE 88% FIGURE. They reported a polling of TWO people and ignored a polling of almost 1000 people. Whatever flaws may have come from latter poll, they pale in comparison with the flaws of polling only two people.
Or are you suggesting that two “random” people are more likely to voice the overall opinions of America than 1000 people?
The question at hand is “Why did they report the opinions of two people while they had evidence of a more diverse poll that indicated a public opinion of the opposite?” To simplify, “Are two greater than 1000?”
And I find it amusing that you think it’s ethical to ignore the voice of 1000 in favor of the voice of two.
If you would just take the time to examine the poll, you would be able to see that…
Seriously though, I see no reason for you to address the poll. I certainly see no reason for your doing so after you admonish others from doing the same. If you wish to accuse Rather of acting on a bias then you need to show that he acted on his bias. The assumption that the reason for rejecting the poll must be bias is, of course, begging the question. Instead of asking, as the Op-Ed piece does “What else explains the fact that the longtime anchorman never reported on the results of his own network’s poll to CBS viewers?”, the accusers must demonstrate that Rather did have bias and acted upon it. No one has done so. So there is no need to debate the validity of the poll yet, unless you wish to.
Also, please note that talking to 2 people on camera does not constitute polling.
Viewers can actually see people respond to the questions and gauge their reactions for themselves. Polls are faceless numbers.
*No political dreamer was ever wild enough to think of breaking down the lines which separate the States, and of compounding the American people into one common mass. - John Marshall ( McCulloch v. Maryland )
It is clear that you have no idea what this poll shows. This is in part because of your own pigheadedness and in part because its such a poorly designed poll. Let me try to put this in a perspective you can understand. Suppose the poll had shown 22% support for Bush’s proposals and that the viewing audience was overwhelmingly democrats.
The self selection error stemming from the decision to watch the address renders the 88% figure meaningless. To report it at all is actively misleading as your continued failure to understand demonstrates.
Your lack of rational though astounds me. It is pretty much impossible for CBS to not know how many of the 928 watched. I do agree it was shitty reporting not to give a breakdown, the percentage of people who watched is newsworthy in itself.
I didn’t say that only Bush supporters watched, I said the sampling was heavily skewed towards Bush supporters. This was patently obvious from the 71% general support among watchers vs 43% among those who didn’t watch.
As for crappy arguments, yours seems to be two wrongs make a right. There is simply no excuse to report polling numbers that are this meaningless and misleading.
I don’t watch TV myself so I will have to accept that the two women interviewed were as negative as you say. I suspect that I might have viewed their interviews somewhat differently but in the absense of any other information I agree that this would be bad and probably biased reporting. Nothing however could justify reporting that poll.
By the way, I notice that the CBS link above has some new numbers saying general support jumped from 47% before the speech to 62% after. Not quite 88% but at least it has some meaning.
Where do I “admonish others from” referring to the poll? I told Ned that the problem lies NOT in one poll, but in the other. The former is the 88% poll, the latter is the 2-person “poll”.
I…
Did…
Not…
Say…
This…
Indicates…
A…
Bias.
Please do not put words in my mouth. I said, “AT WORST, this indicates a bias.” IN ADDITION, I said, “AT BEST, this indicates shitty reporting.” Describing the best- and worst-case scenarios is NOT “begging the question”.
I never wished to. I wished to debate that, yes, it’s a stupid idea to report the opinions of 2 random shmoes when you have hard data of the opinions of many, many more than indicates the opposite.
Sure it does. Just not a very good poll… WHICH IS EXACTLY THE POINT. I don’t know how many more times I can say that… y’all just ain’t listenin’!
Thanks. Love you too, Ned.
Your assertion is very, very flimsy. It first assumes that the vast majority of people who would be opposed to Bush’s plan choose to remain ignorant on the issue, which I think is an offensive and small-minded take. Second, it assumes a “right-wing conspiracy” to flood the polling site with “Yay Bush!” answers.
Sure, historically there have been more supporters watching their guy talk, but that only hints at the possibility that the polls are not entirely accurate… Hence the margin of error in the polls. Do you think you’re smarter than people who conduct polls for a living? I sincerely doubt they’ve just “glossed-over” this notion.
How would you find out if the viewing audience was overwhelmingly democrat?
The poll didn’t measure Political Affiliation… it measured “Agree or Disagree”. Period. To throw out those results on an ASSUMPTION is rash. And to report the exact OPPOSITE of those findings based on an assumption is, once again, shitty news reporting.
Again, your entire basis for explaining away the ignoring of the poll results is based on an assumption.
You’re relatively new. You must not know where the Pit is.
See, this is where you’re misunderstanding me, Ned… I am NOT saying that they should necessarily have reported the poll numbers, I am saying they should NOT have reported “voters leaning slightly in favor of the Democratic plan”.
I’ll add it all up…
-They have poll result that says people greatly in favor of Bush plan.
-They report that people are greatly favor in Democrat plan, with NO POLL RESULTS WHATSOEVER to back that up (aside from the interview with two random people in a coffee shop).
That’s what was wrong with this report… if they felt that the poll result was skewed, they shouldn’t have made ANY report at all! They should have double-checked the original results. Instead, it appears that they simply ignored the results of the poll and reported something for which they had no evidence for.
I don’t know how many different ways I can say this, Ned.
I am sorry you had no interest in whether the poll was wrong or misleading, perhaps I misunderstood when you said:
You have consistently demonstrated that you have no idea what the poll means even after discussion of the results. You seem to be convinced, for instance that 88% of the 928 people approved when it is absolutely clear that only a fraction of the 928 were included. By my calculations the actual survey size with respect to this number is likely somewhere between 100 and 120 people.
By the way, looking over Clinton’s polls, I see his last State of the Union address was seen or heard by 70% of respondents. If this is correct, and frankly I am a bit incredulous, what does it say that CBS didn’t want to tell us that only 10 or 15% listenned to Bush?
You also demonstrate that you don’t know what a margin of error is. It is quite possible to nail down a meaningless and misleading number to a high degree of accuracy.
As for how I know that the sample was skewed towards Republicans, the article tells me that it was and backs up that assertion with some numbers that give me an idea of how skewed it was. I have no idea how you can seriously question this assertion. It is not an assumption as you suggest, it is a patently obvious observation that the 100 or so who watched were not representative of the 928 in the sample.
As for the two women, I already agreed that this would be bad reporting and evidence of bias assuming the report was as described. I have a sneaking suspicion however that these were two swing voters. Out of curiosity, did one of them express support notwithstanding her concerns? I am not saying it happenned but I can easily imagine how a report like this could more accurately reflect the situation then a convoluted report of a poll that demonstrates a high number of soft supporters who have continued serious concerns or a simple report disclosing high support without discussing how soft it was.
I would also readily conceed that, while the 88% number is garbage, the poll does disclose meaningful information favorable to Bush which presumably was not reported. This could just be a question of the time involved to review a flawed poll.
Sorry for the flame, it really was a pretty incredible statement though.
In your opinion, why did CBS commission the poll to begin with, if they realized that the poll sample was so skewed? (And it was, for the reasons you mention). Do you think they would have publicized the numbers if they reflected a lack of support for Bush, or did they run a poll with no intention of using it at all? If the former, do you think that taking a poll whose results you will only use if it reflects badly on one side is an example of bias?
My guess would be that CBS has used similar flawed polling for some time and automatically used it again though the situation was somewhat different and the key question was of deeper relevance. Through the Clinton years the question asked was whether the viewers reacted favorably. This time they asked for more explicit approval of controversial policies.
I can’t imagine they expected negative numbers. If they had come up negative, presumably because democrats everywhere felt an uncontrolable urge to torture themselves or he did it naked, I think they would have found a justification to slip it in. Not so much a question of bias, just an inability to contemplate ethics when there is blood in the water.
The poll was always misleading but at least it was just a puff piece. I doubt it got much attention whereas this one would have not only gotten attention, CBS would have been ridiculed. I think this thread makes pretty clear how difficult it would have been to report the poll in a meaningful way on television. I also don’t know how long they had to contemplate the numbers and decide on a reasonable way to present them prior to the broadcast. They could easily have run out of time and the numbers are stale by the next night.
You seem to be asserting that the folks at CBS suddenly came to the realization that their poll results were skewed between the time they commissioned the poll and the time they would have aired it. Possibly this was itself a result of seeing the out-of-line results. Your suggestion is plausible. But it is merely a possible explanation, with no evidence to suggest that it is true. I don’t think one could prove bias from this one incident. But it is suggestive, and if combined with other such incidents, could be used to make such a case.
I’m not sure of how you are defining the word “evidence” in your statement. But it is certainly suggestive of either. And as such, can be combined with other equally inconclusive evidence to build a strong case.
Ned - The verbatim comments of the coffee shop women (and the CBS reporter doing the piece) can be found at http://www.mediaresearchcenter.org
That organization is clearly conservative, and clearly believes in widespread liberal bias in the major news media, which you may agree or disagree with. However, for the purpose that you would be using the site (to get the verbatim transcript of the pertinent news pieces), their validity should not be in question.
Where are you getting numbers on how many people surveyed watched the speech? On what are you basing the assertion that the 88 percent figure is grossly misleading? On a statement thrown into CBS News’ web story on the poll, with no statistical evidence to back it up?
Wonder if they used a similar statement in reporting poll findings after Clinton speeches?
Indeed, inclusion of the statement in their web story, given the context one can now gather by looking at CBS News’ past practices with Clinton and how they suddenly changed with Bush (not to mention the huge amount of verbatim evidence from CBS broadcasts that people can now judge for themselves, thanks to the link provided by SaxFace), would tend to me to call the pooh-poohing statement in their web article into question more than anything else.
Let’s look at some facts not in dispute:
CBS News commissioned a poll immediately after Bush’s address to Congress.
This was the practice going back to at least since 1992.
CBS decided not to air or even allude to the polls’ findings in their post-speech television coverage.
CBS instead ran an immediate and next-day story that included information that directly countered that which they had received from their commissioned, scientific and random survey.
(now I want you to pay attention on this next one, Ned)
CBS News put the results of their poll on their news Web site. If this was bad, terrible, misleading, wrong information, why, pray tell, did they do that?
“These numbers make no sense. They have to be partisan. They can’t possibly be right. We can’t report this on the news.”
But they can on their Web site? Huh?
Their next day’s story alluded to new, unnamed polls, showing Americans leaning toward the Democratic tax proposal. Which would seem to indicate that they see some validity to reporting poll numbers.
So, in summary, CBS always reported polling info after presidential addresses to Congress - on television, where tens of millions would see it, absorb it, take it as fact.
They prepared to do it again this year, changing their mind only after seeing the numbers showing overwhelming support for Bush’s proposals. Not broadcasting their polling information on their television news post-speech coverage was a break from almost a decade of past practice (although this was the first time in that time period that a Republican president was involved).
Rather than dismiss the information as false, misleading, and not worthy to report, CBS News instead noted it only on their news Web site, where only a small fraction of the number of people who would have seen it on their television broadcast will now see it.
Thoughts, Ned?
My opinions on polling are irrelevant to this debate. Your’s, too. CBS News saw polls as highly relevant. And the moment that they stopped seeing them so is highly curious.
I am nearly as polished on my statistics as I once was, but there is some clues as to how many in the sample actually viewed the speech:
The margin of sampling error could be plus or minus three percentage points for results based on the entire sample, and four points for results among those who viewed the speech
I think this information along witht the number of respondents should give enough information to give a ballpark figure for the number that watched the speech.
Milossarian, I have no problem accepting the validity of a transcript there and would love to read it but I can’t find it.
I calculate the numbers watching using simultanious equations and the various percentages given regarding previous general support for Bush’s priorities. If I made a mistake in assumptions my numbers could be out considerably but calculating two ways provided reasonably consistent results and the key numbers are in line with expectations.
There is no question that the sample was skewed. I have stated the evidence several times now and it should be obvious on its face that this is the case. A sample which is not representative of the population provides a meaningless poll. As I have stated repeatedly, the fact that intelligent people on this board continue to ask this question, in the face of clear and incontrovertable evidence to anyone with the slightest background in statistics proves quite nicely that the number is seriously misleading.
I have already discussed why there would be a change of policy given the nature of this state of the union as compared to previous ones by Clinton as well as the more specific and politically significant question asked so I won’t repeat it.
Why did they put it up? It isn’t a useless poll, just the key number was misleading. Look at the site, it may lead with 88% but huge numbers below show the key meaningful number derived from the poll where general support rose from 47% to 62% and below specific numbers are given for particular policies as well as disclosed of the nonrepresentative nature of the sample. As I said before, I suspect they saw a problem and ran into time pressures. It was too stale and possibly too confusing to go on TV the next day but worthy of posting with sufficient explanation of the numbers in a less confusing written format. Obviously its not that much less confusing though.
CBS’ opinion that polls are important could only be extended to argue that misleading polls with flawed methodology are just as important only by someone hobbled by his own agenda.
I couldn’t agree more. Which you certainly seem to be.
Your cite regarding what was asked in every Clinton poll is rather, uh, scant. You mean to tell me all that was ever asked until the Bush speech was “what did you think?”
Is Oliver Stone directing your posts?
I’ve emailed Knowledge Networks regarding their methodology. I certainly hope they respond.
But I do give you credit for trying. The silence of many of the other “usual suspects” in this thread is rather loud.
The key question on the polls I found was a simple “was your reaction favorable”.
Can you name the last time Clinton used the State of the Union to sell a specific controversial policy to the nation? I remember a bunch of feel good laundry lists.
Here in Washington state, two tax-cut initiatives passed overwhelmingly in each of the last two years. To read the newspapers and listen to the TV reporters, you’d think that 90% of the population opposed these cuts, though.
Any honest person with more intelligence than a camel would be unsurprised that Dan Rather would kill a story that painted Bush’s proposal in a favorable light. The only question is how many milliseconds it took him between hearing the results and demanding the severed heads of the pollsters.
