In its attempt to sway, manipulate, and form world opinion to fit with editorial boards, the MSM now has a new tool: World Opinion Polls.
In case you missed that, I’ll rephrase it. The MSM now conducts WORLD opinion polls so that we can be enlightened by knowing what the world thinks. The concept is so flawed that I won’t insult the intelligence of readers here by bothering to debunk it, but I will say this.
What does it say of news media editorial boards, when they actually commission worldwide polls and then publish them as if they are hard fact? Either these folks are truly thin between the ears, or so expanded in their delusions of grandeur that they believe their own muck.
Take a read of the latest World Poll from the BBC, pie charts and all, which by the way, only has a margin of error of between plus-or-minus 2.5% and 4%… got that, only 2.5%. BBC uses the poll to tell us what “the world” thinks of Iran and the nuclear showdown. As for me, I’m off to read something more relevant, like a 1963 manual on tie-dying your T to match the daisy covered VW van. Cheers!
( cross posted @ Celestial Junk )
HA that's laughable alright...BBC worldwide polls the world!
Who in the world was polled...why BBC worldwide listeners and readers of course! A bunch of folks nicely misinformed by the constant drivel produced by the BBC.
I think I'll just pass on taking this data as meaningfull. Unless you are interested in knowing how successful the BBC has been at warping opinions across their area of distribution the results are useless.
I used to tell my students, over and over again - "I'm not interested in your opinions; opinions belong in the coffee shop; ;I'm only interested in conclusions grounded by factual evidence and valid logic. Period".
The sad reality is that such an approach was new to many of them; they were used to simply and only being asked for 'their opinions'. The utopian mentality in our universities and educational system is that the Pure Untouched Mind has Direct Access to Truth, and therefore, what they 'really really Feel' is closest to Truth. Facts? Piffle. Logical causality? More piffle.
So- one must be sceptical of any poll. You have to know the questions before you can accept a poll, and it's astonishing how biased, how loaded, many questions are.
And it helps to have respondents who actually know something about the issue. Otherwise, you get unreliable answers.
Another problem with polls is the nature of the respondents. Who was asked? Educated, uneducated, farmers, workers, students, literate, illiterate, who, who? What about- The people who can't be reached in the poll? The people who aren't online? The people who are busy working and can't be reached? Who are these people who replied?
A basic flaw in the BBC poll is one question, which asks whether the respondent thinks Iran's nuclear activities are for 'energy and weapons'. That's against most rules of questioning. You don't use the word 'and', because how do you know which term the respondent is really referring to? Is it 10% energy and 90% weapons? Or the reverse?
Another interesting note, is that the country most supportive of war against Iran's nuclear ambitions is: Iraq.
Anyone seen Joe Green... I have a brillant insult for him...
Reminds me of the old joke:
Q. How do you keep an Englishman uninformed?
A. Turn off the BBC.
Q. How do you keep him misinformed?
A. Turn it back on.
(I surf the BBC website fairly regularly, solely to find out what the enemy propagandists are thinking.)
I ask, again. Has anybody ever seen raw polling data ? Is polling data regularilly audited ? Has anyone ever seen a list of those questioned in a particular poll ? CTV, CBC, G&M, SES, Strategic Council, .. none of them MSMers has ever polled me.
They are not making it up !!??
Fascinating to see Iraq be the most anti-Iran nation in the poll though, being middle-high on sanctions, and higher than both the U.S. AND Israel on the military strike option.
It's not in the least shocking of course given the history of the Iran/Iraq wars but I was still a bit surprised given a lot of the rhetoric in Iraq these days, and the whole "Shia revival" thing (which I still think is a legitimate concern). It makes total sense that Iraqis would feel this way, but I was still interested to see it confirmed in a nice little chart.
I agree it's all mostly meaningless (all polls are really) but I don't think that makes it necessarily useless, or uninteresting. Seems to me to be an awful lot of support for sanctions, so a concerted effort on that front might get some strong economic sanctions (even Russia and China are around the 30% mark, and the really low countries are mostly ones that might want to pursue nuclear power some day, so there's a lot of self interest there that could be overcome). And to be realistic, while threats can't be taken off the table, a military option isn't remotely realistic anyway, so that's all just wasted rhetoric that could be applied to a real solution (besides, even Bush isn't pushing that rhetoric). Anyway, as I said, not terribly meaningful, but not uninteresting imho.
Those people watch,read and listen to the usial lies and junk news that passes off as truth what they need to do its simply turn off their TVs and radios and quit reading those crappy news papers
Hoax Aware: Venture did a piece on polling companies quite a number of years ago. There are fewer and fewer people who will answer telephone surveys, so the companies end up calling the same people more often. My household, for instance, has answered at least 7 polls in the last 6 years... they know we'll do it, so they call us. This makes the process incredibly suspect because mostly loudmouth schnooks like me tend to respond in the first place.
For starters: In order for a poll to be valid, one must assume that every single person called will respond... every single turn down of the call is significant... even if that person doesn't care because people who don't care count. In the venture piece, they were batting less than 50% on phone calls... that's 50% or more refused to be polled.
As far as BBC... I wonder how many calls Canada got... to be statistically representative, out of global population of 6.5 billion we must have had 2 or 3 people polled. And, I wonder what that old man living in a cardboard box in Bangladesh thought... I'm sure the phone line to his abode was crystal clear; as was the line to several of those street kids in Brazil (17 million of them).
This poll, is so laughable it'd make great comedy for a stand-up.
Many years ago, when Preston Manning was leader of the Reform, and during an election, I was called. I always respond to polls, and seldom if ever give truthful answers. That time I did.
?1-if the election was tomorrow, who would you vote for. A. Preston Manning.
?2- Who do you think would make the bast PM and again I answered Preston orReform.There were several other questions, and my answer was the same.
After each answer, the pollster said, Preston Manning and Reform are not an option. I could choose Lib, P.C. or NDP.
2 days later the results were published, and of course the libs, chretain were number 1, etc. At the bottom of the results, cdns turn off Reform as they failed to register. I called all the TV stations and papers to question the results. I was told that I was probably referring to a different poll, it is not their job to question the results or to ask what questions were/weren't asked. The poll was taken Sept 6-9. I was called on my birthday, (hard to forget_Sept 7.) I have never believed poll results since. Also, it is a fact that cell phone users are not polled.
OMG, BS is asking a question in the House. I thought she disappeared.
Stupid is as stupid does.
'Nuff said.
The way of the weasel. A MSM self defense tool.
Well, as long as they get responses from 25 million respondents, what's wrong with that?
/sarc
Let's see. They telephone 3000 people around the world, one fifth bother to not put the phone down immediately and from the 600 respondents, they can make claim to what the world thinks?
I'm off to the bathroom.
Hey, Dave, in the second world war, a popular phrase was:
"If the BBC says you have been bombed, then you know you have been bombed".
B. HOAX AWARE Are they making it up?" Of course they are. But not by creating ficticious polls, however, but by just asking the questions in a manner to provide the required result.
Mary, I have had a similar experience. I was called to gather my opinion about some new education funding.
The question was something like:
"Where should increased education spending be directed: to smaller class sizes or special programs"?
My reply was :
"I do not think there should be increased education spending. It should be reduced. I do not have this option so you poll is biased".
The response: "brrrnnngggg". The phone was hung up. Obviously, the poller had instructions, there was a purpose to the poll. Basically, the answer came out a few weeks later and it was somtheing like:
"Majority of Ontarians want class sizes to be reduced". The poll was instituted by the teachers union. Hey, go figure.
Polls serve two purposes:
1. To form public opinion.
2. To test the succes of your propaganda.
Wimpy Canadian,
Excellent example. Obviously they sidestepped the tough ** Canadian Polling Standards Board.**
No Polling Standards Board? What? That means polling in Canada is a fraudulent free-for-all?
Hello? = TG
PS. The MSM makes up for the lack of a WORLD polling standards board by using a phrase that imparts Labroratory precision quality to their polls.
Something like: ** Accurate to within 99 percent, plus or minus 2%, 5 times out of ten... especially on Sundays. =TG
Ipsos Reid polls are above average.
** Ipso - facto **, after all. =TG
Just curious- Who told you it was flawed?
6.5 billion people on earth... A poll extracting their opinion.... give your head a shake!
And the most rediculous part is the MSNM wants the government to respond with policies that address the opinion polls. Consider what most of us know outside of our usual daily work environment. Perhaps twenty percent of opinions could be considered informed opinions. So our government should base its policies on uninformed opinions??? That explains what happened over the last 15 to 20 years. I think public opinions are public enemy number one. Making it "world" opinion simply means it is even a more "uninformed" statistic.
Al-lea, Excellent basic logic. Common sense.
Irrefruitable! =TG
World polls, eh ? Can just see the headlines
WORLD POLL SAYS RAE IS BEST TO LEAD CANADA
huh ?? Simple. Who is Rae's so called Uncle MO ?.. You got it, Maurice Strong... Who made PET ? You got it, MS... And Muldowny ? Yep... And Chretien ? yep... Harper ? Not a chance.
So with Maurice Strong, the UN, OFF$$, Adscam$$, Power Corp, MSM, and now World Polls on RAE'S SIDE, it's in the bag. Heard it here first. Me thinks even Warren Kinsella is sweating at the thought.
Sorry, that*s irrefrootable! = TG