December 23, 2003

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Polling

I got polled today!

The phone rings at home in Michigan. A voice says: “Hi, I’m calling with Something-Something Research. I just have one quick question: Who do you plan to vote for in the upcoming Democratic caucuses?”

Even though I won’t be voting in the upcoming Democratic caucuses, I gave ‘em an answer. And that was it.

Somehow I always thought there was more to it. Maybe there is, and this was just a low-rent polling operation?

But speaking of polls, check out this whopper from The Washington Post and ABC News.

What’s up with poll questions, yo? “Do you approve or disapprove of the way President George W. Bush is handling: The situation in Iraq?” I mean, part of my problem is I don’t even know what “the situation in Iraq” is. Is it the WMD thing or the capturing Saddam thing? Or the self-government thing, or some thing I don’t even know about? Or some combination of all of these things, and I am expected to mentally add and subtract my many approvals and disapprovals into one master reaction?

This whole approve/disapprove model — a polling staple, I know — strikes me as too emotive. Might as well ask people which statement they like better: “Boo, Bush!” or “Hooray, Bush!” (More on moral skepticism and the boo-hooray model of ethics. Only ‘cause it’s the holidays.)

Polling as a subject of journalistic inquiry ought to be probed a little more deeply.

Matt recently mentioned the recent NYT/CBS poll on gay marriage.

Now, I am a shades-of-gray kind of guy — you will not find me dashing off prescriptions for “the situation in Iraq” or anything else more complex than what I’m having for lunch. Or, okay, maybe online journalism.

And, okay, human rights.

So I am increasingly uncomfortable with the Americans that are “increasingly uncomfortable with same-sex relations.” Yet I find my point of view — the profoundly-disturbed-at-this-trend point of view, natch — represented nowhere in the mainstream news stories. (Maybe I missed it — got a link?)

As a journalist, what do you when you’re reporting on a poll in which the majority articulate a logically and/or ethically wrong position? Do you just write up the numbers and get some quotes? Which quotes do you get? Where do you put the quote that says, “The majority of people in this case are articulating a logically and/or ethically wrong position”? You do have that quote, don’t you?

Me, I’d like to see more of that fancy deliberative polling.