Polling is dead is accurate. The question is who killed it?
Television killed polling. Polling credibility might still be breathing in print had television never been invented.
Call this a paraphrase if you must, but I call it an update:
The complete-waste-of-time slice in the pie chart should be 99 percent:
Having updated Mark Twain, or whoever said it first, I must confess that I consider a poll the word of God whenever it confirms my opinion.
I was 13 years old old in 1947 when I saw Magic Town. I knew back then that polls were a hustle. Little did I know how far polling would go on television. In my dotage I realize that Rip Smith (James Stewart (1908 - 1997) is the father of polling.
Radio and motion pictures constituted mass communications before television. With that in mind, I believe that Magic Town was a major income boost for poll-takers. Magic Town reached a large audience; convincing many that opinion-polling was reputable.
NOTE: “Opinion-Polling” was Rip Smith’s failing business in the movie. (Imagine naming a business Opinion-Statistics!)
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0039595/plotsummary
Professional polling organizations never use “Opinion” in their titles. It is the Gallup Poll, the Quinnipiac Poll, the CBS Poll, the FOX News Poll, and so on.
So why replace the word statistics with the word polls since polls are expressed as statistics? One answer is that the word statistic has long been associated with lying, while the word poll was scrubbed clean by television.
Another answer is that mass communications brought big money to polling. Big money requires a squeaky-clean image especially in politics; whereas, manipulating statistics for a limited audience in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries did not pay hucksters hundreds of millions tax deductible advertising dollars every year.
Political polls favoring one party or one candidate are good examples of advertising reported as news. The result of a poll is not news. A poll is a manufactured press release that can fly under the “hard news” radar screen. Voters making decisions formed by polling results reported as news is still one of the most lucrative sources of income media moguls have even though Hillary Clinton failed to cash-in on fake polls.
The press never engineered a train wreck so they could report the carnage (at least not yet). Political polls are always engineered for the evening news. Pollsters are more than engineers. Pollsters are professional hit men; they will not whack anyone until somebody pays them for the hit.
Polls done by newspapers and TV networks are so unbelievable they are beneath the dignity of even the most partisan journalist. Say what you will about Dan Rather’s fall from grace, but say this as well: In his heyday Rather said he did not trust polls. Logically, he did not trust pollsters either.
Bottom line: Because of television’s power of persuasion caveat emptor is all but obsolete. Tens of millions of television addicts believe the lies told in product advertising commercials; so what are the odds they are smart enough to see through the government’s political polls told by expert propagandists?
Finally, government-media selling a totalitarian ideology in bits and pieces as hard news crossed into the danger zone decades ago, yet no one fought to stop the government from using tax dollars to advance the Socialist agenda that most Americans abhor. No religion —— except Socialism —— could get away with the same thing. Ask yourself this: How many Americans would stand still for it if Muslims, or Jews, or Roman Catholics, or Buddhists were given tens of millions of tax dollars every year to do the same thing Democrats do on television every day in order to convert the audience to true believers.?
There is no doubt that television is an organ of the Democrat party. MSM-initiated polls would have the public believe that a TV network or a newspaper or a magazine would pay for a poll —— then report a result that helps Conservative Republicans win elections. I saw polls help elect Establishment Republicans, but I never saw television report one that favored a conservative candidate.
President Trump's 2020 campaign manager, Brad Parscale, told CBS News that polling is no longer a reliable way to judge a race for political office.
Trump Campaign Manager: Polling is Dead
By Rick Moran June 19, 2019
https://pjmedia.com/trending/trump-campaign-manager-polling-is-dead/
By Rick Moran June 19, 2019
https://pjmedia.com/trending/trump-campaign-manager-polling-is-dead/
Television killed polling. Polling credibility might still be breathing in print had television never been invented.
Call this a paraphrase if you must, but I call it an update:
There are four kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, statistics, and polls.
The complete-waste-of-time slice in the pie chart should be 99 percent:
Having updated Mark Twain, or whoever said it first, I must confess that I consider a poll the word of God whenever it confirms my opinion.
I was 13 years old old in 1947 when I saw Magic Town. I knew back then that polls were a hustle. Little did I know how far polling would go on television. In my dotage I realize that Rip Smith (James Stewart (1908 - 1997) is the father of polling.
Radio and motion pictures constituted mass communications before television. With that in mind, I believe that Magic Town was a major income boost for poll-takers. Magic Town reached a large audience; convincing many that opinion-polling was reputable.
NOTE: “Opinion-Polling” was Rip Smith’s failing business in the movie. (Imagine naming a business Opinion-Statistics!)
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0039595/plotsummary
Professional polling organizations never use “Opinion” in their titles. It is the Gallup Poll, the Quinnipiac Poll, the CBS Poll, the FOX News Poll, and so on.
So why replace the word statistics with the word polls since polls are expressed as statistics? One answer is that the word statistic has long been associated with lying, while the word poll was scrubbed clean by television.
Another answer is that mass communications brought big money to polling. Big money requires a squeaky-clean image especially in politics; whereas, manipulating statistics for a limited audience in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries did not pay hucksters hundreds of millions tax deductible advertising dollars every year.
Political polls favoring one party or one candidate are good examples of advertising reported as news. The result of a poll is not news. A poll is a manufactured press release that can fly under the “hard news” radar screen. Voters making decisions formed by polling results reported as news is still one of the most lucrative sources of income media moguls have even though Hillary Clinton failed to cash-in on fake polls.
The press never engineered a train wreck so they could report the carnage (at least not yet). Political polls are always engineered for the evening news. Pollsters are more than engineers. Pollsters are professional hit men; they will not whack anyone until somebody pays them for the hit.
Polls done by newspapers and TV networks are so unbelievable they are beneath the dignity of even the most partisan journalist. Say what you will about Dan Rather’s fall from grace, but say this as well: In his heyday Rather said he did not trust polls. Logically, he did not trust pollsters either.
Bottom line: Because of television’s power of persuasion caveat emptor is all but obsolete. Tens of millions of television addicts believe the lies told in product advertising commercials; so what are the odds they are smart enough to see through the government’s political polls told by expert propagandists?
Finally, government-media selling a totalitarian ideology in bits and pieces as hard news crossed into the danger zone decades ago, yet no one fought to stop the government from using tax dollars to advance the Socialist agenda that most Americans abhor. No religion —— except Socialism —— could get away with the same thing. Ask yourself this: How many Americans would stand still for it if Muslims, or Jews, or Roman Catholics, or Buddhists were given tens of millions of tax dollars every year to do the same thing Democrats do on television every day in order to convert the audience to true believers.?
There is no doubt that television is an organ of the Democrat party. MSM-initiated polls would have the public believe that a TV network or a newspaper or a magazine would pay for a poll —— then report a result that helps Conservative Republicans win elections. I saw polls help elect Establishment Republicans, but I never saw television report one that favored a conservative candidate.
