BBC POll Debunked by Me - President Bush Favorable Ratings

BBC, IPSOS-Reid, Gallup, CNN/USA Today ^ | 06/17/2003 | Joseph Ranos

[Sonar5]

Hi all,

I was debunking another poll, and thought I would post what I consider to be a total Integrity Gap by the BBC, and a Polling company called IPSOS-Reid. I have contacted them as well, and will see if I get a response.

The BBC posted poll results under:

"Poll suggests world hostile to US"

But the BBC hired IPSOS-Reid to poll the data in The United States of America, as listed here:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/spl/hi/programmes/wtwta/poll/html/default.stm

In that poll, they stated President Bush Favourable ratings as only 43%.

But if you go to another IPSOS-Reid site it states President Bush Approval ratings as 62% as stated here (Early June, 2003):

http://www.ipsos-reid.com/media/dsp_displaypr_us.cfm?id_to_view=1837

So which is it. The BBC ran a program called: "What The World Thinks of America"

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/wtwta/default.stm

So I wonder how flawed their other data is since they obviously used flawed date in this poll. But I guess they produced the results they expected, huh?

So what do you think, should the BBC Print a retraction, and apology?

Does this place the BBC's integrity in the same league as the New York Times or The Guardian?

Regards, Joe

(PS - Some of you may remember me shortly after The Shuttle crash talking about the flawed Michoud External Tanks of which turns out I was pretty accurate on that one.)

[Russell Scott]

At this point Baghdad Bob has as much credibility as the BBC. I have a sneaky suspicion the BBC has major Arab money greasing its propaganda engine.

[nopardons]

The toe sucker, errrrrr ... Dick Morris was on Sean Hannity's radio show today and he also debunked the BBC poll. He had gotten hold of thier figures, as well as some polls written about in the N.Y. Times and showed how they had been rigged and misreported.

You did good ! :-)

[Sonar5]

Hi,

I don't have the ability to listen to Hannity on the radio. I was responding to someone on another board when I decided to look into the poll a bit more.

Regards,
Joe

[FairOpinion]

Also they used selected countries.

[nopardons]

Hannity's better on the radio, than he is on T.V.!

You did very well, all on your own and I was NOT saying, nor even implying that you got your idea from Dick Morris; just that he was saying similar things to you. Your research is VERY good; I'm impressed.

[Sonar5]

I figured I should add the Images as well.

#1 = 62%

http://www.ipsos-reid.com/images/media/mr030609-4.gif

And Then we have this one... Same Company.

#2 = 43%

http://news.bbc.co.uk/nol/shared/spl/hi/programmes/wtwta/poll/img/political/graph_2.gif

[Teetop]

Not surprised....

[sam_paine]

Also they used selected countries.

"Due to technical difficulties" they were unable to poll in Africa, for example. If you look at their map they showed on BBCWorld last night during a promo, you can clearly see that their answered were handpicked assortment. As I remember, nothing in Africa, only Brazil in SA, just BS.

[sam_paine]

Australia - Roy Morgan Research
Brazil ? LPM Research F2F
Canada - Leger Marketing
France ? IPSOS Opinion
Indonesia ? Synovate
Israel - PORI
Jordan ? IPSOS Stat
Korea ? ORC International
Russia ? Russian Research & F2F
UK - ICM
USA ? IPSOS Reid

Uh how bout:

Japan?

Mexico?

Belize?

Singapore?

Taiwan?

Argentina?

---

Also, how bout some minimum bar questions for validation? Such as "Does America provide a large % of your GNP in aid to your country?" or "Does America kidnap cows from your country for medical experiments?"

If they answer those wrong, then they are uninformed and their response should be tagged.

[JohnnyZ]

I think the +43 is on a 200-point scale, -100 to +100. So it's really like getting 143/200, or 72%. So maybe that's not quite what they're doing but I think it's something like that, apples and oranges.

[Stefan Stackhouse]

Most of the world IS hostile to the US. The few who are not are all trying to come here.

It must be remembered that our ancestors immigrated here for a reason. More often than not, it was because they were opressed, persecuted, discriminated against, harassed, cheated, enslaved, threatened, and HATED by people in the old country. Is it thus any wonder that the descendants of the people that hated our ancestors now hate us?

Plus la change, plus le meme chose, as one group of America-haters would doubtless say. . .

[Sonar5]

Letter from IPSOS -Reid USA to me:

Hi all,

The Data the BBC presented is FALSE. The Poll graph they stated does not state favourable - Unfavourable, or list total favourable which according to the real figurse is 70%+ In IPSOS Data from the PDF File. (52 Pages). So I am still right.

The numbers are really irrelevant as the point is really about how manipulative polling is. I could take all kinds of figures and manipulate them like this firm does to create the BS Data they want to BIAS their story.

But I will post the response I received from The President of IPSOS-REID United States of America for your reading pleasure. His response really drives home why NO-ONE should take heed of any poll. They are nothing more than specifically manipulated to generate the desired response by the people paying for the data.

SO, Look at their excuse and I hope you will see my point and think about it the next time you actually believe what these polls say.

---

Hello, Mr. Ranos,

Thanks for writing.

The short answer is: The BBC poll report you saw cites the percentage
of Americans "Very favorable" toward Bush: 43%
In that BBC poll, the total percentage of Americans very or somewhat
favorable toward Bush is: 70%

The Ipsos Public Affairs/Cook Political Report poll that you cite from
June 2003 asks Americans to rate Bush's job performance, a slightly
different question.

In the Ipsos PA poll, the percentage of Americans who "strongly
approve" of Bush's job performance is: 37%
In that poll, the total percentage who approve Bush's job performance
strongly, somewhat or who lean toward approval is: 62%

You already know where to go on the web to get the Ipsos-Reid/Cook
Political Report poll results.

Here is the information you need on the Ipsos/BBC poll results:

The topic is "What The World Thinks of America".

It was the topic of a 2 hour show on the BBC.

They released the results from an 11 country study. Ipsos did the
interviewing in U.S., France and Jordan.

ICM Research is the company who organized this for the BBC.

Here are the poll results on the BBC Website:

news.bbc.co.uk/11/shared/...efault.stm

If you want to view the data tables, they are on the ICM Research
website:
www.icmresearch.co.uk/rev...%20usa.pdf

Thanks again for writing.

Thomas Riehle
President, Ipsos US Public Affairs
1101 Connecticut Avenue NW
Suite 200
Washington, D.C. 20036

---

Note how the BBC left out the Very or Somewhat Favorable number of 70%.

Just manipulated Data to show Intended BIAS towards The United States of America.


Regards,
Joe