I thought I was in despair over the state of 'news'. Then I got a call from CBS...

Perksie, you should be a writer or sumpthin'.

Snorting loudly here. Clearly they weren't counting on polling anyone with a measurable attention span.

The poll-news are just so dumb it makes me break out in a rash. The lure is understandable, I guess. It can reduce news to a sports-result; sort of like an NBA league table. Whereas a league table is a historical record of performance - this team won so and so many matches, and got points for each match, and therefore is in this or that position on the league table - a poll news item is just dumb because it aims to be a true account of future results.

45% of statistics are just made up, anyway. I saw it in a poll online.

And I'll bet the guy asking the quesions was a CBS news intern finishing up his degree in journalism at a university near wherever he was calling from.

I think that we are missing out on important news. What if the American public was really afraid of earthquakes and no one noticed? Could Katie Couric force the government into action with some kind of Geological Fault Bailout plan?

This is important stuff, and I don't think your sarcastic answers really helped anyone.

BenPanced said:

45% of statistics are just made up, anyway. I saw it in a poll online.

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It's 66%. Some of the questions were ambiguous it's true, but you're deliberately misrepresenting the figures for your own political gain.

Do you think that the 24-hour news cycle is a threat or a menace?

Please choose one.

StephanieFox said:

Do you think that the 24-hour news cycle is a threat or a menace?

Please choose one.

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Do you think that the readership/viewership not asking questions or evaluating news is a threat or a menace?

People get what they ask for.

Maxinquaye said:

Do you think that the readership/viewership not asking questions or evaluating news is a threat or a menace?

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Yes.

TerzaRima said:

Snorting loudly here. Clearly they weren't counting on polling anyone with a measurable attention span.

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From what I read and understand, I honestly believe there's more brain-power (excepting myself) on any one page of P& CE than in the entire CBS, NBC and FOX organizations.

Furthermore, having seen some fine displays of cutting wit, razor-edged repartee, and sheer bombastic derring-do (excepting myself, of course) from some of the more eloquent and loquacious citizens of AW, I bet that if that 'reporter' called some of you fine folks, they'd hang up their reporters hat and turn off their phone before they decided to tangle with the 'thinking class' again.

LOL

DWSTXS said:

From what I read and understand, I honestly believe there's more brain-power (excepting myself) on any one page of P& CE than in the entire CBS, NBC and FOX organizations.

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Don't forget more pompousness and arrogance than every member of every congress and parliament.

Which is okay, because we have the smarts you mentioned.

After reading the questions the so-called 'researcher' was asking, I began wondering. . .why do they even pretend to 'research'?

Why not just make up what they want and report it? It sounds as if she was trying to push for the 'correct' answers anyway. I wonder if the 'researchers' doing the poll were told to look for, or reach for, certain answers.
You know, those answers that they'd turn into juicy quotes and sound bites to illustrate the point they were looking for in the first place.

DWSTXS said:

After reading the questions the so-called 'researcher' was asking, I began wondering. . .why do they even pretend to 'research'?

Why not just make up what they want and report it? It sounds as if she was trying to push for the 'correct' answers anyway. I wonder if the 'researchers' doing the poll were told to look for, or reach for, certain answers.
You know, those answers that they'd turn into juicy quotes and sound bites to illustrate the point they were looking for in the first place.

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That's not scientific is it. Statistics is supposed to be science. If you don't get responses to the carefully framed questions you pose in order to get the polled to answer the way you want, you're not being scientific.

Pollster: Have you stopped beating your wife? Yes/No?
Pollee: What? Yes!

Following news item: Domestic abuse have fallen sharply.

I pity the poor reporter if he does call. Good one!

The irony to me is that you can come home, turn on a "news" channel and not get any news. I've come home when there was a ..thing... happening, to find out what was going on, to find that stock guy in a weird t shirt on, or that @hole O'Reilly thumping his chest about something that deeply concerns him and no one else, or that crybaby guy who has the 100 year plan (brilliant, wonder what he'll be doing in 100 years) but nothing on the current news situation.

Forget skynet. I'm afraid of Foxnews becoming self-aware.

I really can't stand watching the news.

1. The talking heads make me want to hurl something heavy at the screen.

2. It's just full of stupid crap that isn't news.

This incident just underlines how sad, pointless, and biased it is. I'm not sure why they bother. They should just go the route of women's magazines and just make up stuff. That would be just as useful.

Maxinquaye said:

That's not scientific is it. Statistics is supposed to be science. If you don't get responses to the carefully framed questions you pose in order to get the polled to answer the way you want, you're not being scientific.

Pollster: Have you stopped beating your wife? Yes/No?
Pollee: What? Yes!

Following news item: Domestic abuse have fallen sharply.

Click to expand...

LOL ! exactly.

I remember years ago, I went downtown to take some pics at the Ross Perot presidential campaign kickoff. It was downtown Dallas at the Reunion center.

We got there early, and were on the floor level. The network camera guys got their cameras set up, and began taking video of the crowd.
This was over an hour before the speeches were to take place, and the some network guys began trying to convince the people scattered throught the seats to all move in together so that they could get a tightly packed crowd shot.
The crowd wasn't being cooperative, so they began throwing t-shirts and VHS tapes (of Perot) into the crowd (if they moved into the section they wanted).

When the small crowd was packed into one area, they set the cameras up, and filmed a piece, and they did a full pan around the remainder of the seats, a full 360, and then they stopped filming and went to set up in front of the stage.

The festivities started, and it was standing room only in the place until the conclusion of all the speechifying.

When I got home that night, I watched what they'd filmed.

They showed the crowd packed tightly into the area of seats, and then they panned back to show the emptiness of the remaining seats, and then they cut to the speeches.
The result made it appear as if a very few people were there for the speeches, when in reality, it was just the opposite.

That was my eye-opening introduction to how easy it is to manipulate using the media.

I have no political affiliations republican or democrat, or whatever party Perot was involved with, so, I had no dog in the hunt.

But I will never forget how they spun that event.

False Dichotomy, ahoy!

The only stastics I trust are from Les Luthiers: "Half of the people who watch TV, according to recent studies, are the 50 porcent of TV viewers"

Besides, why do I need AP or Reuters when I get all of my relevant news from P&CE

The Daily Show had some funny comments about CNN relying so heavily on reading viewer comments to kill time. Pretty much, they accused CNN of just letting their viewers explain the news.

I haven't seen or heard the news on TV or radio in years. I get all my news here

Mara said:

The Daily Show had some funny comments about CNN relying so heavily on reading viewer comments to kill time. Pretty much, they accused CNN of just letting their viewers explain the news.

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The Private Eye over here make fun of that. They say 'Tell us what you think at filluptimeforus.com!' or writeournewspaperforus.com. And the main fictional journalist they have is called Phil Space. He's usually standing outside a shopping centre at five in the morning trying to find someone to interview about a story nobody really knows anything about yet.