CNN REPORTING AND POLLING BIAS EXPOSED ON YOUTUBE - Vinod Gupta's Opinion Research Corporation

No wonder the polling against President Bush on CNN seems so slanted. In fact, I thought that journalism was supposed to be nonbiased and if so, it is supposed to ask tough questions to the establishment. I guess that that is only true if a Republican is in charge.

What a bunch of hacks.

ping

Great work Doug.

Very effective voiceover.

(steely)

Bump! This should be in breaking news!

Excellent work, as always.

I don’t like CNN. I think they’re guilty of institutional bias, like the type that infects the newsrooms of much of the MSM.

Vinod Gupta seems to run roughshod over his board, leading to high board turnover and compliance among those who remain. With control of the board, he treats the company like it’s his own private corporation, but it’s not. It’s publicly traded.

Some of InfoUSA’s elderly products should be pulled. They are being misused.

However, this seems like much ado about nothing...

Gupta is an entrepreneur who came up with a simple idea of compiling lists of businesses from the yellow pages. He executed well and became wealthy. Millions of people have bought his company’s CDs containing business leads, national phone directories, etc. through computer stores under the name of American Business Information (ABI) or InfoUSA. I’ve used lists from his company, though I prefer others because InfoUSA’s are not as up-to-date as others.

If Gupta was a Republican, you’d love him. Just because he’s a Clintonista doesn’t make him a bad guy, just one with poor judgment. Of course, from his view, he’s made a few investments in the American political scene that paid off well. I believe Clinton gave him some official U.S. government function in Bermuda and was ready to make him the U.S. Ambassador to Fiji. That’s a gig lots of people could adjust to.

Gupta chooses to give some of his money to the Clintons. It’s his money. Making donations through their kids to get around donation limits is something donors of both parties do, though the Democrats likely do it better.

I don’t like the way Gupta runs his company to his personal benefit. If I was a shareholder, I would sell my stock and move on. He’s doing the same things lots of entrepreneurs do, but the difference is he’s got shareholders. Once you have non-family shareholders, the rules changes. Certainly they change for publicly traded companies. Gupta, however, doesn’t seem to get that, but that’s between him and his shareholders.

While I don’t like the elderly lists his company sells and think they should be pulled, I can’t blame him for their misuse. If I did, I would have to blame the manufacturer and shop that sold a firearm whenever a criminal used it illegally.

He personally made a couple of hundred grand when InfoUSA paid too much for Opinion Research. It’s big money for me, but not for Gupta, who pulls in $2 million a year, with who knows how much net worth. It goes back to the lack of board oversight and his business practices. However, it does seem as thought the Clintons attract this type.

Opinion Research is a blue chip marketing research company with a stellar reputation. InfoUSA sells to the marketing research industry and might use the Opinion Research acquisition as a way to create some new products. This is a vertical market integration move and has legitimate potential for synergy.

Will this result in distorted polls on CNN because of Gupta’s Clinton bias? I can’t see it. No one at Opinion Research would put up with it. Pollsters and marketing researchers want to be right more than anything in the world.

Opinion Research is located in Princeton, home to a zillion good marketing research companies. Anyone working there could have a job at another marketing research company tomorrow without the need to relocate. Heck, it doesn’t take much to launch a marketing research company, so a lot of them could start their own firms.

There is polling bias from time to time, but not because of the researcher. Telephone surveys are more likely to pick up Democrats than Republicans, so the researcher might set quotas for party affiliation, likelihood to vote, gender, age, income, etc. Of course, each quota makes it harder to complete the study (tough for overnight polling) and who’s to say there might not be a shift in party affiliation? There sure was one at the mid-term elections.

So what’s a researcher to do? Some weight the results to adjust for sample bias, but now you could be accused of skewing the results.

The details of a poll rarely get reported, so you don’t know much about the sample, question structure, question order, etc. However, I’ll bet that the researchers carefully report what they did and attempt to present the results as neutrally as possible. It’s in the news reporting that the bias creeps in.

If 51% prefer X and 49% prefer Y, I can report it as “Most people prefer X.” Or, I can report a narrow lead or that Y is close behind X. Or it might be a statistical tie.

There are many ways to report a glass as half empty or half full. You can choose the questions you report. It goes on and on.

So, is CNN biased in it’s report? I think so, though they are throwing a bone at conservatives now and then (e.g., Glenn Beck). And to be honest, I don’t watch CNN enough to ascertain whether it’s better or worse. Neither do a growing number of viewers according to the ratings.

Is there some conspiracy between CNN, the Clintons, and Gupta? Please.

Will Opinion Research skew data to help the Clintons? No way.

Is polling skewed? Not intentionally.

Is Gupta being foolish to get involved with politics? Well, I’m less likely to do business with his company because I don’t like his political views and don’t want to fund him even indirectly. I won’t watch a Leonardo DiCaprio flick for the same reason.

Face it. There are a lot of ignorant people (not stupid, but ignorant) who are influenced by the media and popular culture and thus, hold opinions without reason. Polls reflect this unfortunate consequence of the reason deficit. You may not like it, but it’s no conspiracy.

Is polling skewed? Not intentionally.

An eloquent response. But that comment is just foolish. Polls are skewed all the time. News is slanted all the time.

Making donations through their kids to get around donation limits is something donors of both parties do, though the Democrats likely do it better.

It's illegal to use another person as a conduit for campaign contributions - including the kids.

"Is there some conspiracy between CNN, the Clintons, and Gupta? Please."

Take out the word conspiracy and substitute the word coordination and this would be totally correct.

Am sure you know that the word "conspiracy" is a codeword for kookies believe this.

It is not kooky to understand clearly that the Clintonista machine involves heavy duty maniuplation of polling data as well as of the mainstream media, including especially CNN.

It is a coordinated strategy which has been developed and perfected by their criminal machine through a "war room" strategy to influence one way or another the media and polling interpretations of current events, especially Clinton related events.

If you believe otherwise, you have not been paying attention over the last 18 years.