Media Lavishes Attention On Bogus Internet Poll Showing Hillary Losing To Repubs -- And Ignores Reputable Poll Finding Opposite
November 27, 2007 -- 11:03 AM EST // //
Ladies and gentlemen, a tale of two polls.
Yesterday two polling firms -- Zogby and Gallup -- released surveys of the presidential race that offered strikingly different conclusions. The Zogby poll found that Hillary is trailing five leading GOP candidates in general election matchups. The Gallup Poll, by contrast, found that Hillary, and to a lesser degree Obama, has a slight to sizable lead over the top GOP contenders.
A couple of other things that distinguish these two polls: The Zogby one is an online poll, a notoriously unreliable method, while the Gallup one is a telephone poll. And, as Charles Franklin of Pollster.com observed yesterday, the Zogby poll is completely out of sync with multiple other national polls finding Hillary with a lead over the GOP candidates. The Zogby poll actually found that Mike Huckabee is leading Hillary in a national matchup. The Gallup findings were in line with most other surveys.
I don't need to tell you which poll got all the media attention. Do I?
The Zogby survey was covered repeatedly on CNN, earned coverage from MSNBC, Fox News, and Reuters and was covered by multiple other smaller outlets.
By contrast, I can't find a single example of any reporter or commentator on the major networks or news outlets referring to the Gallup poll at all, with the lone exception of UPI. While the Zogby poll was mentioned by multiple reporters and pundits, the only mentions the Gallup poll got on TV were from Hillary advisers who had to bring it up themselves on the air in order to inject it into the conversation.
You could argue that the Zogby poll got all the coverage it did precisely because it is out of sync with multiple other polls, and thus is news. But the truth is that the reporters and editors at the major nets know full well that the Zogby poll is bunk -- yet they breathlessly covered it anyway.
Worse, the Zogby poll was covered with few mentions either of its dubious methodology or of the degree to which its findings don't jibe with other surveys. Bottom line: The Zogby poll was considered big news because many in the political press are heavily invested in the Hillary-is-unelectable narrative for all kinds of reasons that have little to do with a desire to, you know, practice journalism.
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