And the Survey Says:

So I'm reading headlines yesterday and I see one that makes me stop to read the story. Like so many other headlines -- it was misleading . . . As was, in this case, the story. The Headline read:

Iraq War Opposed by 60 Percent of Americans, CNN Poll Shows

The first line of the story makes a summary statement for people who only read the first paragraph of stories. This is called the inverted pyramid style of writing. First the big idea is presented. Next you get supporting details of the story. Then comes the minutiae. This way when an editor has to cut the length of a story to fill a news hole, he cuts from the bottom and no re-writes are necessary. The body of this story read in part:

Aug. 9 (Reuters) -- Sixty percent of Americans oppose the war in Iraq . . .according to a CNN poll. The poll showed 36 percent of respondents said they were in favor of the war -- half the peak 72 percent who supported the war as it began, said the poll of 1,047 Americans. The telephone survey, which had an error margin of 3 percentage points, showed 61 percent believed at least some U.S. troops should be withdrawn from Iraq by the end of 2006.

First off, I read the story from Reuters, Bloomberg, UPI, and CNN and they all had the same take on it -- meaning they were all purposely misleading. The details of the poll never reveal 60 percent of the people saying "I oppose the war in Iraq". What they reveal is 61 percent believed at least some U.S. troops should be withdrawn by the end of 2006. There is a world of difference between these two statements. You can support the war and want to see some of our troops home for Christmas.

Secondly, they polled 1,047 people over the telephone for these results. I don't care how "scientific" the poll claims to be, 1,047 people are not representative of the entire country. The July 2005 census showed the U.S. population at 295,734,134 people. The absolute most this survey shows is that 61 percent of those 1,047 people favor some kind of withdrawal by years end.

The sampling is too small to be able to claim it represents the opinions of close to 300 million people. Even if they had some way of pre-knowing some demographical information about the respondees before the call, the poll would be invalid because the selection process could predetermine the outcome. But calling 1,047 people on a blind survey is just ridiculous.

Time of day will greatly skew the demographics. As will who is willing to answer the questions for the poll. Younger voters, females and retirees will skew the demo one direction, while middle aged white guys will skew it another. Again, any pre-screening of these demographics will invalidate the results.

So, all we have is a random survey, asking leading, fuzzy questions, designed to get a pre-determined response in order to get an inflammatory headline. The definition of modern journalism.

They ask: "Are you in favor of the Iraq war?" And: "Do you believe at least some U.S. troops should be withdrawn from Iraq by the end of 2006?" And then they act like the answers are two sides to the same coin. They don't have the guts to ask: "Do you oppose the Iraq war?" because they know they would get a very different result. And if they do ask that particular question, they never give us the result; we only hear the result from the fuzzily worded question that sort of sounds like people oppose the war.

Then they use the results of these bogus polls to try to manipulate real public opinion by pounding and Pounding and POUNDING their disingenuous numbers into the American psyche. Pretty soon, supporters of the war start asking themselves if maybe they should rethink their position since they appear to be out of step with the majority. Again, the definition of modern journalism.

Now, don't get me wrong. If the headline were true I would be perfectly willing to accept it. It's just that the facts of the story do not support the assertion in the headline nor in the opening sentence of the story. They have to manipulate the data and the way they ask the questions in order to obtain their predetermined results.

There you have it. And now we have come to the point in this discussion where you have to make a decision. Are you going to trust the self-serving, agenda driven, liberal media or will you consider what the clear thinking, funny naked guy has to say?

Remember: Friends don't let friends read headlines -- without asking them to think before believing.