An urgent job for 4 Corners
Posted by Christopher Sheil on Thursday, June 14, 2007
Mark Bahnisch has too much faith in opinion polls as barometers of political support, but makes valid complaints about the recent round from Galaxy. Basically, Mark is complaining about the way in which News Ltd journos in particular spin poll results to build favourable narratives for the government. In other words, what Mark is really complaining about is the effects of the poll results, albeit, as he rightly complains in this case, fabricated effects. While I think that what opinion polls measure is problematic, I also have an abiding interest in their effects, including, among many other things, their influence on forming rather than measuring opinion.
This brings me to my point, which is that it’s surely well and truly time for some decent investigative journalism on the Australian polling business. Given the effects of polling, what I want to know in detail is how the results compilation process works. No, I don’t want to know about how firms choose samples or formulate questions or calculate margins of error and all that stuff. I want to know how the chain of custody is maintained for the results. I don’t want guesses, or anecdotes, or what you imagine happens, or imagine might happen or should happen. I want the hard stuff. I want it straight. And I want it on film.
On the face, the business seems wide open to manipulation. What happens after the phone calls or face-to-face visits? Do all the foot soldiers pass the results to one central supremo? Who checks who how? What assurance do we have that the results aren’t fiddled with, or aren’t able to be fiddled with, at least now and again? How do we know that the bloke who runs Galaxy isn’t in a position to tweak a point or so one week and another point or so the next? What’s to stop him slyly promoting a trend, knowing that he’ll be amply covered by the margin of error and the rogue poll excuses if he drifts too far from his competitors? Given the public interest in the polls, and given that we know journos frequently make stuff up about the results, it’s high time that we found out exactly how easy it might be to make the things themselves up.
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This entry was posted on Thursday, June 14th, 2007 at 2:23 AM and filed under Media, Politics - national.
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13 Responses to “An urgent job for 4 Corners”
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I couldn’t agree more, and was holding exactly the same concerns and thoughts.
These Galaxy polls - and their presentation (rather, insinuation) into public discourse - were too cute by half.
Getting personal, the boss of the Galaxy Poll business was interviewed albeit briefly on television recently and, looking at him, the word trust didn’t immediately come to mind.
But what a temptation that business must be. Release results which alter public discourse and steer the whole thing in a new direction, over new ground, repairing against pitfalls - surely the effects of all of that has a dollar value?
And given the position the LNP were in, what price a Galaxy Poll (released in The Telegraph for goodness sake - think trust?) to create those effects just when needed. What price for that?
Cynical? You bet. And speaking of betting - which is no distant cousin to this polling thing - it’s not as if there’s cause to rely on a squeaky clean history in that regard. No, it’s just common sense to want to peel open the polling can of worms and see what’s cooking.
Posted on 14-Jun-07 at 4:54 am | PermalinkGive ‘em a call and ask ‘em.
http://www.galaxyresearch.com.au/contact.html
Initial enquiries should be made to either
Chris Lonergan, Rob Keller or Kylie Newcombe.
Phone: 02 8572 6800
Fax: 02 8572 6820
Galaxy Research
1-3 Derwent St
GLEBE NSW 2037
Just up the road from me, I could pop over in my lunch break.
Why wouldn’t you trust such wacky funsters?
But really, I think there’s too much self-interest at stake for anyone in the media to have a hard look at the poll fetish. How would they know what to talk about otherwise? The talking heads have the poll two-step down pat : note sagely that we should take polls with a pich of salt, then talk sagely as if this morning’s was genuinely important.
Posted on 14-Jun-07 at 6:47 am | PermalinkA friend of mine back in uni days has a pt job phone polling for one of the major players. I recall her telling everyone proudly that she doctored the results on uranium mining. She said she wasn’t going to let some right wing jerks from the eastern suburbs make it appear that Australian supported uranium.
Posted on 14-Jun-07 at 8:06 am | PermalinkWhat I want to know is why isn’t the research used by Porteous and co up on their website ? Morgan pins theirs on the web each Friday afternoon. Are the Courious Snail journos working on the results to cook up next weeks news?
Posted on 14-Jun-07 at 8:44 am | PermalinkI’d have thought this was “core business” for Media Watch, instead of spelling mistakes or doctored photos from the Wangaratta Times.
Posted on 14-Jun-07 at 10:18 am | PermalinkI had a bit of back and forth in the comments to Matt Price’s piece today. Its about 13 pages of comments now so I don’t recommend you wade through it.
He said the unions were “making Rudd’s job tougher”, I asked what the evidence of that was in terms of real peoples’ percetions (not just neg media coverage). He said some Labor MPs in the cafateria at Parl Haus told him so. I said that wasn’t very good evidence on the actual views of the electorate and the affect of those views if any on voting intentions. He said that was “a lot of blah” and I should “go to university and get a PhD” if I wanted those questions answered. HA!
My naive notions of the serious media devoted to keeping the public informed of the imporrtant issues, beyond the tired generalisations, has been dashed! Crushing!
Posted on 14-Jun-07 at 3:40 pm | PermalinkInteresting comments at Mumble regarding the Galaxy poll.
Posted on 14-Jun-07 at 4:55 pm | PermalinkAmanda, I guess all that merely amounts to the political class gratuitously trading in attitudes, which might be worth something if it didn’t also happen to align with News Ltd’s editorial stance. Re your earlier comment, I agree that there is no hope and little point in any arm of the commercial media taking the story up, given the incestuous relationship. This is a job for the ABC.
The Mumble link is here.
Posted on 14-Jun-07 at 5:29 pm | PermalinkBut Pricey’s a Dylan man. One expects more.
I agree the ABC would be more likely to do the story but their self-interest and the commercials are aligned on this one. In fact, they may have more invested, as an organisation, since they do alot more talking head politcal class chattery.
It would be a cracker though.
Posted on 14-Jun-07 at 7:13 pm | PermalinkMatt Price and I see him every day at work is a gibbering and I mean loudly, audibly, gibbering ijit. He is a fruitcake. He does good grammar though.
Posted on 14-Jun-07 at 7:16 pm | PermalinkBut Pricey’s a Dylan man. One expects more.
Manipulator of crowds, you’re a dream twister. Actually, strikes me as a guy who doesn’t take the whole thing too seriously, which is probably wise. Don’t think twice, it’s all right, jokerman. I have to thank one of his recent columns for prompting me to have a big REM session.
Posted on 15-Jun-07 at 2:16 am | PermalinkInndeed. If you think what MPs tell you in the tearoom is all you need to kow about an issue, clearly you aren’t taking it very seriously at all.
Posted on 15-Jun-07 at 5:01 am | PermalinkMatt Price does give off the impression he’s a bit like a techie hangin around out the back of the concert not far from the green room, and then has a stab at a diary of sorts. But mostly it’s more fun just hangin out.
Posted on 15-Jun-07 at 10:02 am | Permalink