Here’s a couple of polls from Polling Report
http://www.pollingreport.com/media.htm
Gallup Poll. Sept. 14-16, 2007.
N=1,010 adults nationwide. MoE ± 3 (for all adults).
.
“Now thinking for a moment about the news media: In general, do you think the news media is too liberal, just about right, or too conservative?” Options rotated. N=501, MoE ± 5 (Form A).
.
Too Liberal ......... About Right .........Too Conservative .........Unsure
% % % % .
9/14-16/07
45 .........35 ......... 18 ......... 2 .
9/7-10/06
44 .........33 ......... 19 ......... 4 .
9/12-15/05
46 ......... 37 .........16 .........1 .
9/13-15/04
48 .........33 .........15 .........4 .
9/03
45 .........39 .........14 .........2 .
2/03
45 .........36 .........15 .........4 .
9/02
47 .........37 .........13 .........3 .
9/01
45 .........40 .........11 .........4 .
.
“In general, do you think the national news media are too liberal, just about right, or too conservative?” Options rotated. N=509, MoE ± 5 (Form B).
.
Too Liberal ......... About Right ......... Too Conservative ......... Unsure
.
% % % % .
9/14-16/07
42 ......... 38 ......... 16 ......... 3 .
.
“In general, do you think the local news media in your area are too liberal, just about right, or too conservative?” Options rotated. N=509, MoE ± 5 (Form B).
.
Too Liberal ......... About Right ......... Too Conservative ......... Unsure
.
% % % % .
9/14-16/07
25 ......... 56 ......... 16 ......... 3
Chicago Tribune Poll conducted by Market Shares Corp. June 23-27, 2004. N=1,000 adults nationwide. MoE ± 3 (total sample).
“Thinking again about the media and their news stories about politics, elected officials, and election campaigns, do you think their coverage is biased or not biased?”
.
Biased ......... Not Biased ......... Don’t Know
% % %
ALL 76 14 9
Republicans ......... 85 ......... 11 ......... 4
Independents ......... 74 ......... 16 ......... 9
Democrats ......... 73 ......... 17 ......... 9
.
Asked of respondents who answered “Biased”:
“Generally speaking, do you think the news media are mostly biased in favor of Republicans, mostly biased in favor of Democrats, or does the bias favor each party about the same?”
.
In Favor of Democrats ......... In Favor of Republicans .........
Each About The Same ......... Don’t Know
% % % %
Republicans ......... 53 ......... 4 ......... 26 ......... 2
Independents ......... 14 ......... 11 ......... 42 ......... 7
Democrats ......... 4 ......... 24 ......... 40 ......... 4
Let’s generate an Opportunistic Poll Element to the Bias Index. The only way to really use such an element is to know ahead of time what the methodology would be so that such an analysis would be published ahead of time in consideration of the contract rules and payout.
Gallup Poll. Sept. 14-16, 2007.
N=1,010 adults nationwide. MoE ± 3 (for all adults).
Since this is a “scientific poll”, the N should be proportional to the weight attributed to the element. And we’d want this kind of scientific result to have more weight than a standard element that may derive its value from how many online activists there are. If you choose a standard divisor for all polls, this might prove fair. For now, let’s say we divide N by 400, leaving a multiplier of 2.525.
Let’s subtract the “too Liberal” from the “too conservative” and we get
9/14-16/07
45 - 18 = 27 points of liberal bias.
For grins...
9/7-10/06
44 - 19 = 25 points of liberal bias.
9/12-15/05
46 - 16 = 30 points of liberal bias.
9/13-15/04
48 - 15 = 33 points of liberal bias.
9/03
45 - 14 = 31 points of liberal bias.
2/03
45 - 15 = 30 points of liberal bias.
9/02
47 - 13 = 33 points of liberal bias.
9/01
45 - 11 = 34 points of liberal bias.
If anything, this poll shows double the amount of liberal bias that the online polls show.
So if we used the 2007 Gallup poll, we’d have 2.525*27 points of liberal bias = 68.175. Since this is the 4th element in the equation, we divide by 4 ( we’d also have to divide the other 3 elements by 4).
Previously, we had
MBR: 18 points of liberal bias
Skews: 19 points of liberal bias
Polling Point: 12.5 (pretending to use my data) points of liberal bias
If the contract were to expire today, it would have ONE opportunistic element, so the value would be (18 + 19 + 12.5)/4 (assuming you weight all 3 the same) + 68.175/4 = 29.4 points of liberal bias. The opportunistic result pushes the result around heavily. Perhaps too heavily, considering that other indicators show < 20 points of liberal bias. However, all the previous polls showed about 30 points of liberal bias.
__________________________________________________