Polling the Populace...

No this isn't one of those random phone calls from some anonymous person who wants to ask you a series of questions on some topic or about a person... The good old "Can I ask you about this issue?" or the "What do you think of this person's decisions?" or the classic "Have you decided who you're going to vote for?"

Definitely not. Usually I don't answer the caller's questions. I simply tell them I'm not interested, it's none of their business and/or please take me off your calling list.

The polls I'm talking about here are the ones where a news outlet asks viewers or readers one specific question on a certain topic.

This can be done on the organization's Webpage or on a social media page like Facebook.

When it's an actual poll, you want the question to be fairly simple, something with a yes/no/maybe or agree/disagree/neutral sort of answer.

Something people need to remember is that polls posed by a news organization are not scientific, unless it's done in association with a research center like Pew or Gallup. Even then, I probably wouldn't count them as all that reliable.

Most news polls are not somebody wearing a lab coat gathering data from a massive sampling of the population to reach some conclusion about a medicine or an idea of how the wind is blowing with regards to a given issue.

Not at all. These kinds of polls often have a very low response rate because it is not only voluntary, but the person looking to respond must seek out the question to answer it. That means going to the news organization's Webpage or social media page in order to vote.

Thus, only the most passionate people or the ones who really feel strongly about the topic of the question will go through that effort. For a lot of such polls on smaller market station Websites, 200 responses is a lot!

So a lot of these questions are about things that get people's ire up: abortion, gay marriage, the economy, debt, etc.

News organizations want to know what local people think about a given issue, so they ask a question.

However, because of the low response rate, these kinds of things are about as reliable as a broken gyroscope.

Only those who are genuinely interested in, or very passionate about the topic, will respond and they will most likely be very much for or against a given issue, especially when dealing with ones that cause such powerful responses as gay marriage or abortion.

These "hot button" issues are called that because of the vehemence with which people respond to them. And they have very vocal sides, for and against.

Like the more scientific polls, there are limitations to what kind of information can be gathered through such questions. The wording is one of the most important factors because the question may roil people's opinions, depending on the words used to ask it.

Something simple like "Are you for or against gay marriage?" may or may not get much of a response. It's pretty straight forward with responses limited to for, against and undecided.

But if you reword the question, you might get flack for it. Even writing it "Do you support gay marriage?" can completely change the kind of response a poll can get. While the choices would be yes, no or undecided, the simple fact that it's asking if you "support" something may mean the response will be slanted.

People may read the second version of the question to mean that the organization itself supports the issue involved. That may anger people and send more to vote, but it may also backlash in that people won't vote at all. They may also call or e-mail to complain.

There are some less scrupulous pollsters out there who seem to specifically word questions to get a certain answer.

There was even a political cartoon about that a while back, when George W. Bush was still in office, showing a poll taker asking questions at a person's door. The potential answers were Bush as president or some very weird, very extreme and nasty scenario. That's an outlier as an example, but they do seem to want certain answers, which is why I rarely take polls, especially political ones.

So the questions have to be very carefully worded to aim for that journalistic ideal: objectivity. No matter how impossible that ideal is to reach.

Do you have any idea how hard it is to write these questions in such a way that they do not show any slant on the part of the news organization?

From experience... It's nuts!

Even when you spend a long time working on the wording, it's still possible people will respond to it negatively based on a presumed bias. This may not be a fault of the poll at all, but a fault of the story to which the poll to tied.

To continue with the potential poll involving gay marriage, say the story is talking about a state that has just voted to allow it. Then ask the poll. Because of the story, potential voters may assume the news organization supports gay marriage because it's asking the question with a story in support of it.

I know that sounds somewhat confusing, but some decisions made by people are confusing and not even made consciously. It just clicks somewhere in the mind. Explainable or not, people may react and vote with their guts, not their conscious minds.

Sometimes questions asked by a news organization involve how a person would handle a given situation. Think of the sometimes controversial show "What Would You Do?" That's basically what it's doing.

The show creates a situation in which people who don't know the scenario is fake must decide how to react. They can take action, do nothing, wait until they feel safe enough to do something or any other number of potential reactions.

While it may not be necessarily good to compare this show to a poll, it is in essence a poll of emotions. Will people be mad enough, brave enough, crazy enough to do something to fix a given situation?

And they often pick things that are bound to get at least a few people's gorge, such as polygamy, child abuse, drunk driving, racism and many others.

Like the unconscious connection between the news organization's question and support for a controversial issue, it all plays on the emotions of the potential voter or actor. And emotions have never been called rational.

In these kinds of situations, and especially when asking a question on social media, you will get opinions.

On occasion, a news organization will want to run some of those comments, in print or on air. However, the organization has to be careful in doing so.

It has happened when someone will actually take offense at having his or her comment used without "asking permission" first, even if the comment is positive. However, the news organization will most likely respond that the person made the comment in a public forum (on the organization's Website or Facebook page), which means it can be used without specifically contacting the commentator and asking permission.

Or perhaps a viewer posted a very long, in-depth comment that is too much for the entirety to be republished. So the news organization will use part of it. This may result in complaints of taking something out of context by the person who made the comment.

Commentators, like people who vote in the polls, tend to be very passionate about a topic, and if they feel they have been slighted in any way, they will react just as quickly to protect themselves from any "taint," even if that taint is only perceived.

All in all, when you hear about a poll and a news organization, you simply cannot take that poll to be a cross-section of the general population. Only those who feel they have to respond will do so, which will probably slant the results in one direction or another.

It all depends on the poll, the topic, the wording, the passion of the responders.

In the end, a poll is a slice of the whole. Just not a perfect slice.

Addendum to Benefit or Bane

Very early on, I wrote a post about most news outlets using social networking sites such as Twitter and Facebook. Even back then, I had noticed a rather disturbing trend in viewer/reader interaction through such sites.

For me, posting to such a site is to inform and help people. Sometimes it's about a weather alert; sometimes it's an update on a breaking news story; sometimes it's a preview of a story for that evening; sometimes it's asking for viewer opinion on a particular topic.

However, there is a problem. Since these kinds of messages are usually providing information, I personally would appreciate it if viewers/readers would not get nasty in return.

I'm talking about the snarky comments that various viewers post. I know snarky isn't necessarily a negative word. However, since snarky does mean snide remarks, I think there is a chance for a negative connotation.

To be snide is to make a comment expressing contempt, to be derisive of something. Neither of these is a positive connotation. So when someone gets snarky on a social networking site, those comments also tend to be negative.

To put it in colloquial terms, to be snarky is to cop an attitude or to give someone lip.

Some viewers are rather predictable in posting their hate and prejudice. To me, that makes them simply look like fools. They rant and rave and show they are too ignorant to look beyond themselves to the larger picture.

Some attack the news organization, screaming obscenities. In their own way, such postings are just another form of ranting, no matter the topic, which again reduces the mentality of the poster.

Some appear to attempt a reasonable request, such as asking for information regarding something they think the news organization should cover, but the person's manner of going about it is not a nice request at all.

For example, one day, a post was put up with a question on some topic to which the first response was someone screaming about why the news organization wasn't covering a missing girl in a nearby city.

Well, the organization called on that possible missing child, because that isn't something you leave hanging. Turns out it was a hoax message from another country. A response to that line was posted. To which the original screamer said it should still be in the news. Luckily, another viewer posted a reply saying the local organization doesn't often do international news.

That's not to say that all such posters are incorrect. Some do actually post relevant and real events. Like the popular local teacher killed by her husband who then killed himself. Or one of the many nasty crashes on the interstate that send people to the hospital. Or the various roads and intersections local people consider dangerous... To those people, Facebook and Twitter are the Benefit because they are trying to get valid information out.

Those are just a few examples of many, but many of the posts have been along the same lines: they accuse, claiming the news outlet isn't doing its job. Thus, they are the Bane. But when the person in charge responds, they don't want to hear the answers.

Like people who have their noses glued to a Bible. Their minds are already made up, don't confuse them with facts.

You might find that an odd comment coming from someone like me, but considering how many times I've been told I am going to burn because I don't go to a particular church or genuflect a certain way... Well, I usually just tell those people to go away. Just like the ranters posting on the social networking sites, these cannot see beyond their own nares.

They rant, they scream, they rave and they only make themselves look idiotic.

You may have seen some such comments in the past. I read far too many condemning such things as homosexuality; gay marriage; the don't ask, don't tell policy; even Islam. It may seem strange to include that last one is such a list, but because of the controversial nature of the belief system in recent years, it still fits.

Especially when it comes to some of the commentary that exists. Due to the fact that it is a different belief system, there are many out there who attack it just because it is different, even though it is related to the two other most commons forms of beliefs today: Judaism and Christianity (all three are monotheistic, beginning with the oldest - Judaism, and ending with the youngest - Islam). Some posters scream about false prophets (or in some instances, false "profits"), etc.

Truly small-minded and ridiculous.

Far too often, I have seen comments that are based solely on the biases of religious texts. While some such texts can be quite beautiful (take the "Bhagavad Gita" for instance, which is some absolutely gorgeous poetry in my opinion), to base every single opinion a person opines on one is foolhardy. A religious text is not the be all and end all. There is an alpha and omega, but as humans, we do not have the capacity to understand that totality. Therefore, any religious text is of necessity incomplete.

Thus, such comments, especially when they get snarky and attack people, are also incomplete, leaving out vast possibilities and potential options.

In any event, to respond with nasty, demeaning, even inappropriate comments does NOT make the news organization look foolish. It makes the poster look that way.

I myself bite my tongue more often than you can imagine. When I read hate-filled, ignorant commentary, it does make my blood boil. I'm only a human after all, even if my thinking is a bit on the odd side. But more often than not, I do not vent my irritation by posting a reply to a negative comment. (Go back to the original "Benefit or Bane" to read about my own foibles when it comes to venting on Facebook.)

So when you post to a news organization, please refrain from making negative comments. Like the old rule your parents probably told you, if you don't have something nice to say, don't say anything. Or at least make your "criticism" constructive, not destructive.

Posted in December 2010.