The Latest Polling Says…

Let’s cut right to the chase. In short, many polls, research and studies amazingly tell the sponsors or promoters precisely what they want to hear – and are specially constructed to yield precisely those results. We say, be wary of what or who is being surveyed… and who is doing the surveying.

Case in point. Research showed that a new cholesterol drug showed promising results for those who suffer from high levels of the disorder. As many media rushed to herald these encouraging findings, they cited a non-profit foundation as the source of the study. In doing some due diligence, other media uncovered that this same non-profit foundation was created and funded by the same company that developed the drug. Conflict of interest anyone?

Political polling, on the other hand, has become an industry unto itself all the while yielding some intriguing results. Seemingly every few days during an election campaign, a new poll is released usually with some astonishing news. Poll sponsors such as The New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, NBC, et.al., use these polls in large part to generate news for themselves. As with many polls, the devils are in the details and how various media report those details speaks volumes about politics but not much about an accurate portrayal of… anything.

Are they reporting on all adults; or all registered voters; or all likely voters. The results from each group could be vastly different. Was one poll or another “lying”? Probably not. One might want to question their methodologies, however, as well as their interpretation of the results which would dictate how each poll reached some desired conclusion or another.

All of which, when taken into consideration, harkens back to that age-old bromide simply stated as: caveat emptor.

“Truth - An ingenious compound of desirability and appearance.” — Ambrose Bierce, an American short story writer, journalist, poet and American Civil War veteran