Posted on 12/10/2005 8:28:04 AM PST by alnick
I was just called by an NBC pollster. I found it interesting that I was first asked if I think the country is headed in the right or wrong direction, and only after I answered "right," did the man ask my age, and then tell me, "Oh, I'm sorry. The computer is screening for age groups and we're not looking for opinions from your age group at this time. Maybe we'll call you for your opinion later."
Now, it seems to me that they're screening for right way/wrong way opinions as opposed to age group. Why else would they have asked that question before asking my age.
I suspect the computer is programmed to allow a certain, lower, percentage of right way responses than wrong way, so they can report that the American people believe the country is headed in the wrong direction, and use that poll "result" as a club with which to beat this adminstration.
THere are many things I believe are bringing this country in the wrong direction. I mean, the media themselves, including NBC, are the very ones I hold most responsible for the country headed the wrong way, but I was not about to give them ammunition to make things even worse.
That's what my google says.
This tactic is called cherry-picking the population sample -- in first predetermining those likely to give the responses the pollster is seeking, and then only asking that biased sample questions. So they go through the motions of conducting a sample when the questions are so vague as to be highly questionable.
What does "right" and "wrong" mean? It means different things to different people. A good question means the same thing to whomever one asks -- such as, "Are you making more money this year than last?" -- and not opinion piled upon opinion upon opinion -- which are the manipulations of the propagandist. The respondent is not sure what question or concern he is responding to but are directed and encouraged to make a hasty and thoughtless response.
And by this, we should rule the country -- or first off, be informed? Mass media is suited for propaganda and advertising purposes -- and in an age in which people are empowered and competent to pull their own strings, thank you, the old media autocrats won't let them go, still echoing the refrain from another era, "Don't turn your back on me; I own you!"
I agree with you, and if I had been speaking with an honest polling organization, I would have said just that.
FAKE BUT ACCURATE is my descritpion of this picture that I post on every thread about Ted Kennedy:
LOL. Nope, not holding my breath.
Did you get their phone number from Caller ID, and can you reverse lookup the company that owns the phone number?
Let's not kid ourselves. The final "results" of these "polls" are known long before the first question is ever asked.
Did they also threaten to sue you if you divulged the nature of their polling?
That's the next step in the mass media debacle. Any wrongs they do, they will sue for anybody revealing them to others.
"Editors reserve the right to assume as many aliases as they deem necessary to make the story flow more smoothly or give added emphasis to their point."
Geez, aren't these the same folks who cooked up the exploding gas tank myth a few years back?
Why doesn't that surprise me. Sigh.
Personally, I love ad. I only wish it were played on national television.
I was watching a TV show while reading FR, and on it they were doing experiments on tinfoil hats. You wouldn't believe what they discovered.. They discovered that no matter the design of the tin hat, it actually AMPLIFIED your brainwave singnals, making it easier for the government to know what you are thinking.
Don't tell the DUmmies.
Not surprising. I don't believe that these polls are worth a damn. They are push polling to get a result they want.
They wouldn't.
In the bad ol days I used to do surveys. You always make sure you are calling a house that fits your demographics before you ask the main questions if you are doing a demographic based survey.
Other wise you just wasted your time and as you usually get a bonus based on how many completed surveys you do, you do not want to waste your time.
My impression is that the computer is programmed to make the results come out a certain way. I doubt the person manning the phone has any control over it.
My theory is they want a certain outcome. So they program the computer to spit out questions in a seemingly random order, over which the telephone operator has no control. The computer will allow a certain percentage of "right direction" responses to come through in order to make it seem real. Once the operator inputs the "right way" response on all but the percentage that is to be allowed, the computer then puts out a supposed screening question. The operator inputs that data and the computer comes back with a sorry, maybe next time message.
"Bill Kristol was asked about the GOP web ad.
He said, "It was probably a bad idea."
-- -- --
What's good according to Kristol is bad for America, what he doesn't like is good for America.
No, I don't have caller id.
The line of demarcation is no longer left and right, conservative or liberal, but old media mentality and new. The old mentality insists that the people can only communicate with their duly elected officials, and vice-versa, through self-appointed media demagogues, as necessary intermediaries.
So the establishment media was not so upset that the government was paying for "propaganda," as they were not paying THEM for THEIR propaganda. Not paying them off first and exclusively, is absolutely scandalous -- and a violation of all the Ten Commandments and Amendments -- written and upheld by the mainstream media themselves, of course. Who else can be trusted?
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