🚀 go-pugleaf

austern@tristan.mti.sgi.com (Matt Austern) wrote:

>In article <DqCMDn.HwD@world.std.com> jcooley@world.std.com (John Cooley) writes:

>> I just saw on one of those news shows on night TV an interview by Jane Pauly
>> of Ann Landers.  Two of the stats that surprised me was that Ann Landers
>> said when she asked her readers if they could do it all over again:
>> 
>>          - Only 55% said they would have married their current spouse.
>> 
>>          - 70% said they wouldn't have had kids if they could do it again.

>Who would you expect to respond to such a question in a newspaper
>column: people who are happy with their choices, or people who are
>unhappy?  

Exactly.  And this -really- irks me, because Jane Pauley, and her
editors, darn well know better.  They've been to college, and --

-- there's probably not a journalism student in the country, who doesn't
study the failure of Literary Digest's prediction of the 1936 election.
That journal asked its readers to phone in their vote for President.  By
their counting, Alf Landon was going to defeat Franklin D. Roosevelt by a
landslide.

It was, of course, a landslide, but in the other direction.  How did
Literary Digest, a well-respected magazine, make such a mistake?  

If one thinks of who would support Roosevelt and his New Deal, one
usually decides that most supporters would be middle to lower-middle
class, or poor.  Most of those people don't read Literary Digest, and of
those who did, many had no telephone in their home in 1936.  Thus,
Roosevelt supporters were never asked who their candidate was.

Students are taught, by this means, that self-selected surveys are
generally not reliable sources.

Yet, when Seventeen magazine, and the Ms. Foundation for Women, released
a survey a few weeks ago, gathered in the same manner, that once again
found young girls slighted, it was reported on NBC News, during the Today
show.  There was no discussion of how the survey information was gathered
-- by asking Seventeen's readers to send in the survey -- and no
contextual information about the survey's approach or questions was
offered.

>Mind you, I wouldn't be surprised if the dissatisfaction percentage
>really were fairly high: do any of us really make the right choices
>all the time?  I just think we ought to use more reliable numbers.
>This sort of "survey" is a classic example of how not to do a poll.

It's also a classic example of the depths to which reporting has fallen.

...................Tom
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
    CATCHING FLIES WITH VINEGAR Dep't. --
    Darcie McNeill, 14, leading a Victoria, British Columbia, student
    rally against logging practices urged school principals to permit
    students to attend the rally:  "Any principals who would not let
    kids come today are fascist pigs who can rot in hell."
        -- _Globe & Mail-CP_, October 14, 1993
-------------------------------------------------------------------------