Tuesday, April 17, 2007

Broken-Record/Cliched/Dead-Horse Beating/Statistically Ignorant Media Who Cried Wolf

Yet another poll claiming a percentage change represents a "narrowing of the lead" or "precipitous drop" or "dramatic fall" or whatever in some party's fortunes, with attendant implications for the mythical spring election, and all of it, ALL OF IT, within the statistical margin of error.

At least no 'unnamed long-time Liberal insiders close to the PMO' were quoted.


2 comments:

Anonymous said...

What irresponsible journalism that was.
Unnamed senior grits, if i wrote that i'd be ashamed.
My guess is the PMO wrote it, they just reported it and thats even worse.

Mike B said...

Oh, the poll was done by a legitimate firm, Decima, so I wouldn't question the methodology. I might question the timing, and the exclusivity to report deal.

But yeah, the journalism is sensationalist at best,the conclusions very flawed.

What, we won't buy a newspaper if there isn't some new 'score' in the 'federal political playoffs'?

To their credit, they did qualify the whole article with a 'the poll suggests'...but the poll also suggests a heck of a lot less that what CTV draws from it.