[stupendousman]

CNN Political Ticker: All politics, all the time Blog Archive - CNN Poll: Double-digit post-speech jump for Obama plan � - Blogs from CNN.com

Two out of three Americans who watched President Barack Obama's health care reform speech Wednesday night favor his health care plans — a fourteen point gain among speech-watchers, according to a CNN/Opinion Research Corporation national poll of people who tuned into Obama's address Wednesday night to a joint session of Congress.

The poll has a 5 point margin of error, and the "devil is in the details".....

at the very bottom of the story:

The sample of speech-watchers in this poll was 45 percent Democratic and 18 percent Republican.

If you can't hide your agenda any better than that, why even pretend?

[olePigeon]

If you don't understand the material, maybe you shouldn't comment on it.

[hyteckit]

Sounds like stupendousman is bias.

I'm pretty sure a higher percentage of Democrats watch Pres. Obama's speech than Republicans.

Considering, conservatives won't even let their kids watch or listen to Pres. Obama telling to stay in school and work hard.

[SpaceMonkey]

So you are saying that you uncovered "the details" by...reading CNN's story? What exactly were they trying to hide that you discovered so easily? In fact, the third paragraph, well above "the very bottom of the story" reads:

"The audience for the speech appears to be more Democratic than the U.S. population as a whole. Because of this, the results may favor Obama simply because more Democrats than Republicans tune into the speech. The poll surveyed the opinions of people who watched Wednesday night's speech, and does not reflect the views of all Americans."

[stupendousman]

Originally Posted by olePigeon 

If you don't understand the material, maybe you shouldn't comment on it.

If you have nothing intelligent to contribute, maybe you just shouldn't post?

[CreepDogg]

The media is a direct reflection of those who use it. It's nothing more, and nothing less, than a mirror of society. They tell us what we want (and will pay) to hear. So - if the media is biased, it's just reflecting the bias of society.

[stupendousman]

Originally Posted by SpaceMonkey 

So you are saying that you uncovered "the details" by...reading CNN's story? What exactly were they trying to hide that you discovered so easily? In fact, the third paragraph, well above "the very bottom of the story" reads:

"The audience for the speech appears to be more Democratic than the U.S. population as a whole. Because of this, the results may favor Obama simply because more Democrats than Republicans tune into the speech. The poll surveyed the opinions of people who watched Wednesday night's speech, and does not reflect the views of all Americans."

I didn't see a headline that said that there was a 14 point gain by people already inclined to support Obama. It just deceptively states that there was a 14 point jump in support after the speech. Again, the devil is in the details.

With a sample like that, I would be dissapointed if they couldn't create at least 10 points of movement and there was really no way for them to accurately create a sample by just guessing what percentage of the people watched and not simply be oversampling.

Face it, the story was created to make positive spin.

[Laminar]

Originally Posted by stupendousman 

If you have nothing intelligent to contribute, maybe you just shouldn't post?

If only you could take your own advice more often.

Note: Parroting the Republican party's talking points is not "intelligent."

[SpaceMonkey]

Originally Posted by stupendousman 

I didn't see a headline that said that there was a 14 point gain by people already inclined to support Obama. It just deceptively states that there was a 14 point jump in support after the speech. Again, the devil is in the details.

With a sample like that, I would be dissapointed if they couldn't create at least 10 points of movement and there was really no way for them to accurately create a sample by just guessing what percentage of the people watched and not simply be oversampling.

Face it, the story was created to make positive spin.

It says quite clearly there was a 14 point jump "among speech-watchers" and then almost immediately clarifies that the group "speech watchers" is composed mostly of Democrats who might be inclined to favor Obama's proposals anyway. I don't know how much more you can actually expect. Do you want them to create a paragraph-long headline that contains every possible disclaimer? Or are you satisfied that someone with a modicum of intelligence can read the article, as you did, and correctly identify that the sample population is skewed Democrat? The article is completely above-board.

Face it: you're trolling.

[Chuckit]

I agree that this story is kind of iffy, though it's not as bad as stupendousman is making it out to be. Without breaking it down further, these numbers could very well mean lots of people said, "I love Obama but didn't know a lot about his plan before, but now I know it's as awesome as I'd hoped!" The factual sloppiness of the story means it serves little purpose besides propaganda.

[SpaceMonkey]

PS: the reason why the story is newsworthy even though CNN's sampling resulted in a group that was not representative of the population as a whole is because going into the speech Obama's numbers were starting to drop among Dems. As the story points out, before the speech, only 53% of this majority-Democrat group favored his proposals.

[ironknee]

did stupidousman watch the speech? or was he watching american can dance?

[turtle777]

In other words, Obama supporters support even more after the speech.

Wow, that's unexpected

-t

[ironknee]

Originally Posted by turtle777 

In other words, Obama supporters support even more after the speech.

Wow, that's unexpected

-t

yeah, silly thread huh

[Rumor]

Originally Posted by stupendousman 

If you have nothing intelligent to contribute, maybe you just shouldn't post?

You should take your own advice.

Edit: Lammy beat me to it.

[stupendousman]

Originally Posted by SpaceMonkey 

It says quite clearly there was a 14 point jump "among speech-watchers" and then almost immediately clarifies that the group "speech watchers" is composed mostly of Democrats who might be inclined to favor Obama's proposals anyway.

Three paragraphs after the headline (which is deceptive) isn't "almost immediately". If the "story" is as you yourself claims is that "going into the speech Obama's numbers were starting to drop among Dems. As the story points out, before the speech, only 53% of this majority-Democrat group favored his proposals," then the headline and the following paragraphs should have stated this at the outset. You don't get that far into a report and not make it clear what the "story" is unless you want the reader to NOT IMMEDIATELY KNOW WHAT THE STORY IS.

If you want to simply leave the false impression that a broad sample of Americans who listened to Obama changed their minds after hearing him, you'd simply wait a few paragraphs to tell THE WHOLE STORY, assuming that there's a large segment of readers who just skim the headlines and read the first few paragraphs of a story to get the "gist" of it. That's how propaganda works.

Originally Posted by Chuckit 

The factual sloppiness of the story means it serves little purpose besides propaganda.

Exactly my point. I don't think it was "sloppiness" though, because it did serve that "purpose" which I think was intended.

[turtle777]

Originally Posted by ironknee 

yeah, silly thread huh

No, silly CNN headline.

-t

[SpaceMonkey]

Originally Posted by stupendousman 

Three paragraphs after the headline (which is deceptive) isn't "almost immediately".

It's in the third paragraph, and it's before the jump. So yes, almost immediately in news copy which is organized to convey one idea per paragraph. There is only so much information you can convey within a certain number of lines due to the limits of the English language and human cognition. There is nothing "factually sloppy" about the story. All the facts are there. You read them yourself but want to claim that CNN hid them in plain sight. Stop being dishonest. Post when you have something meaningful to say because what you are doing isn't working for you. I hope you like the attention because it's all you have.

[hyteckit]

CNN wasn't being bias; They are just an optimist.

stupendousman is just a pessimist who hates optimistic stories.

The cup is half full my man.

[Chuckit]

Originally Posted by SpaceMonkey 

There is nothing "factually sloppy" about the story. All the facts are there.

I must be having some sort of fugue state, then. Can you quote the portions that offer the following numbers:

• How many Democrats opposed it before
• A breakdown of how strongly those Democrats opposed it
• How many Republicans opposed it before
• A breakdown of how strongly those Republicans opposed it
• How many Democrats changed their minds
• How strongly those Democrats' minds were changed
• How many Republicans changed their minds
• How strongly those Republicans' minds were changed

It seems to me that their numbers basically boil down to "Some people didn't say they supported Obama's plan before, and now a few of those do, but I'm not going to tell you who or why."

[SpaceMonkey]

Originally Posted by Chuckit 

I must be having some sort of fugue state, then. Can you quote the portions that offer the following numbers:

• How many Democrats opposed it before
• A breakdown of how strongly those Democrats opposed it
• How many Republicans opposed it before
• A breakdown of how strongly those Republicans opposed it
• How many Democrats changed their minds
• How strongly those Democrats' minds were changed
• How many Republicans changed their minds
• How strongly those Republicans' minds were changed

It seems to me that their numbers basically boil down to "Some people didn't say they supported Obama's plan before, and now a few of those do, but I'm not going to tell you who or why."

I don't know why you expect to find all of that information in the article? It's pretty clear what it says. CNN sampled 427 Americans by telephone before and after Obama's speech. 45% of them identified as Democrats, and 18% identified as Republicans. Of this group, before the speech 53% of them said that they favored Obama's proposals. After the speech, 67% said they favored Obama's proposals. You can see if you click the link to the full survey results that the other information you list was not asked of the participants. The article does not make any claims regarding those issues, either. So, again, I conclude that there is nothing factually sloppy about the article.

[Chuckit]

Originally Posted by SpaceMonkey 

I don't know why you expect to find all of that information in the article? It's pretty clear what it says. CNN sampled 427 Americans by telephone before and after Obama's speech. 45% of them identified as Democrats, and 18% identified as Republicans. Of this group, before the speech 53% of them said that they favored Obama's proposals. After the speech, 67% said they favored Obama's proposals. You can see if you click the link to the full survey results that the other information you list was not asked of the participants. The article does not make any claims regarding those issues, either. So, again, I conclude that there is nothing factually sloppy about the article.

What are you talking about? Nothing factually sloppy? You just agreed with me that they collected next to no relevant data. That's pretty sloppy.

[hyteckit]

The purpose of the poll was to determine if Pres. Obama's speech had any impact.

So they only surveyed those who plan on watching the speech beforehand.

Then after the speech, they interview the same 427 adult Americans after the speech.

What don't you understand?

There's a link to how the poll was conducted.

http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2009/im...9/09/top13.pdf

Interviews with 427 adult Americans who watched the presidential speech conducted by telephone by Opinion Research Corporation on September 9, 2009. The margin of sampling error for results based on the total sample is plus or minus 5 percentage points.

Survey respondents were first interviewed as part of a random national sample on September 5-8, 2009. In those interviews, respondents indicated they planned to watch tonight's speech and were willing to be re-interviewed after the speech.

Some questions were asked of each respondent both in the pre- speech questionnaire on September 5-8 and on tonight's questionnaire. Where applicable, results for tonight's respondents from both the pre-speech survey and the post-speech survey are reported.

18% of the respondents who participated in tonight's survey identified themselves as Republicans, 45% identified themselves as Democrats, and 37% identified themselves as Independents.

[Chuckit]

Originally Posted by hyteckit 

The purpose of the poll was to determine if Pres. Obama's speech had any impact.

So they only surveyed those who plan on watching the speech beforehand.

Then after the speech, they interview the same 427 adult Americans after the speech.

What don't you understand?

What I don't understand is why somebody would conduct such a useless poll.

[OreoCookie]

To have content perhaps?
Since everything is documented (who was asked, etc.), you can make an informed opinion on the worth of the poll and the article. This is not an indication of bias: if polls were conducted during the RNC would that be an example of Republican bias?

[ebuddy]

Originally Posted by hyteckit 

Considering, conservatives won't even let their kids watch or listen to Pres. Obama telling to stay in school and work hard.

Yeah because when a Republican President speaks in a school, we gotta have the Secretary of Education before a Congressional hearing.

[stupendousman]

Originally Posted by Chuckit 

It seems to me that their numbers basically boil down to "Some people didn't say they supported Obama's plan before, and now a few of those do, but I'm not going to tell you who or why."

Exactly. And "I'm not going to even explain that we are just talking about people who likely already were inclined to support Obama until the third paragraph of the story and I'm going create a deceptive headline which would make it appear that Americans in general are more favorable to Obama's plan".

Nothing "sloppy" there.

Originally Posted by hyteckit 

The purpose of the poll was to determine if Pres. Obama's speech had any impact.

...on those who should already be inclined to support Obama. Yeah, we know. The problem is that the writer of the story and headline tried hard to make it appear that the "impact" was more general, when it wasn't.

Also, before the poll, they really had no idea about the true nature of the audience. They were guessing, took a random sample of speech watchers without having any idea whether they were actually over or undersampling. It could well have been that there were 50% Rep. 50% Dem. watching and the poll was skewed by lack of Rep. participation.

The poll is meaningless, the story deceptive and the facts questionable. The fact that the story is "positive" for Obama as suggested kind of makes my point. A crappy story created to make news that gave a positive spin on the impact of Obama's speech.

Biased.

[SpaceMonkey]

Originally Posted by Chuckit 

What are you talking about? Nothing factually sloppy? You just agreed with me that they collected next to no relevant data. That's pretty sloppy.

Maybe it means that you think the poll isn't very informative. But it doesn't make the article "factually sloppy" or biased. It reported the facts as they are. It clearly describes the limitations of the poll and obviously gave you enough information to conclude that the poll isn't relevant. Are you saying that you and stupendousman have special powers of reading comprehension that the average American doesn't? Thank you for saving us from CNN's one-sided description of the poll by pointing out...the other side of description that CNN gives us in the same article.

[turtle777]

Originally Posted by SpaceMonkey 

Maybe it means that you think the poll isn't very informative. But it doesn't make the article "factually sloppy" or biased. It reported the facts as they are.

Obama Lies, damn lies and statistics.

-t

[SpaceMonkey]

Originally Posted by turtle777 

Obama Lies, damn lies and statistics.

-t

Please. The media conducts the same kinds of quick-reaction polls after Republican events and reports on them as well.

Look at these leftist shills over at CBS News and their shallow, propaganda-like polling for George W. Bush after the 2006 State of the Union address. Bush "scored some points"? Why, I bet most of those viewers were Republican anyway. But you won't see the article mention that! ...Oh, wait, never mind.

[turtle777]

Originally Posted by SpaceMonkey 

Please. The media conducts the same kinds of quick-reaction polls after Republican events and reports on them as well.

Look at these leftist shills over at CBS News and their shallow, propaganda-like polling for George W. Bush after the 2006 State of the Union address. Bush "scored some points"? Why, I bet most of those viewers were Republican anyway. But you won't see the article mention that! ...Oh, wait, never mind.

Yes, and they lie(d) as well. What's your point ?

-t

[SpaceMonkey]

My point is that neither article lied. Can you point out the lie(s) for me, please, instead of just using a LOL face?

[turtle777]

Originally Posted by SpaceMonkey 

My point is that neither article lied. Can you point out the lie(s) for me, please, instead of just using a LOL face?

It using shady statistics to misrepresent reality. Although the statistic is fair to its underlying (poor) data base, it infers that the result apply to a greater population or the general public.
That's what I call a lie, because it's done intentionally.

-t

[SpaceMonkey]

Originally Posted by turtle777 

It using shady statistics to misrepresent reality. It using shady statistics to misrepresent reality. Although the statistic is fair to its data, it infers that the result applies to a greater population or the general public.
That's what I call a lie, because it's done intentionally.

-t

If that is what you believe, then you must believe that the media does so equally for Republicans and Democrats, and thus there is no real bias. I think both examples in this thread clearly state that the result does not really apply to the general public, though.

[turtle777]

Originally Posted by SpaceMonkey 

If that is what you believe, then you must believe that the media does so equally for Republicans and Democrats, and thus there is no real bias.

Geez, there's bias on both sides. Just because both are wrong doesn't make it right.

Your logic is twisted. You are saying that if both lie, it's on equal footing, and hence, not a lie anymore.

-t

[SpaceMonkey]

No, I'm saying that the same kind of media outlet will conduct polls like these equally for Republicans and Democrats, not that Republican-oriented media and Democrat-oriented media both lie. I wish I had found a CNN poll for a Bush speech. But I deliberately chose a "mainstream" national broadcast media outlet like CBS because conservatives usually accuse them of leaning left. Are you saying that CBS, former home of Dan Rather, was biased in favor of Bush?

[turtle777]

Originally Posted by SpaceMonkey 

No, I'm saying that the same kind of media outlet will conduct polls like these equally for Republicans and Democrats, not that Republican-oriented media and Democrat-oriented media both lie.

Some media, yes, others no.

When have you seen Fox fudge a statistic to make Obama look good ?

For some media outlets, it's pretty clear where they stand, and they twist statistics to make their party look good.

-t

[SpaceMonkey]

Originally Posted by turtle777 

Some media, yes, others no.

When have you seen Fox fudge a statistic to make Obama look good ?

For some media outlets, it's pretty clear where they stand, and they twist statistics to make their party look good.

-t

Yes, I think we agree that there is a vast landscape of ideologically-oriented media. But right now we're talking about this CNN article, and I think the charge that the article is "biased" is ridiculous because this has been a standard practice of mainstream or even center-left media even in covering Republican politicians, and the article gives you all the information you say you need to conclude that the poll is irrelevant.

[Snow-i]

Originally Posted by CreepDogg 

The media is a direct reflection of those who use it. It's nothing more, and nothing less, than a mirror of society. They tell us what we want (and will pay) to hear. So - if the media is biased, it's just reflecting the bias of society.

That is the most naive stance on the media and our society I have ever heard.

Let me reccomend going to your local community college and taking sociology 101.

[CreepDogg]

Originally Posted by Snow-i 

That is the most naive stance on the media and our society I have ever heard.

Let me reccomend going to your local community college and taking sociology 101.

You call me naive, yet offer no counter. What's your theory, then, O Wise One? I tend to base mine on empiricism.

[Chuckit]

Originally Posted by SpaceMonkey 

Maybe it means that you think the poll isn't very informative. But it doesn't make the article "factually sloppy" or biased.

How is it not sloppy journalism to base a whole article around one piece of poor-quality information?

Originally Posted by SpaceMonkey 

It reported the facts as they are.

And if I really heard from my sister that her hairdresser's cousin's mechanic said Obama was a hermaphrodite, I suppose you think that would make for a legitimate news story too? Just because some information is true doesn't mean it's useful or complete and certainly doesn't mean it's worth writing a whole story about.

Originally Posted by SpaceMonkey 

It clearly describes the limitations of the poll and obviously gave you enough information to conclude that the poll isn't relevant.

Pointing out that the story you're writing is a POS doesn't excuse you for writing crap.

[hyteckit]

I thought the poll was quite informative.

I recently got paid $75 to take a 1 hr poll about how I liked my new car. Actually more like a panel. No, not death panel.

Only requirement is that I actually own the car.

Kinda like polling those who actually watch the speech.

[Chuckit]

What useful information did it have? As I said, it doesn't tell us how they felt before and it doesn't us how they feel now beyond some general feeling of positivity toward Obama's plans. The only concrete information here is "Obama didn't completely bomb."

[OreoCookie]

Originally Posted by turtle777 

It using shady statistics to misrepresent reality. Although the statistic is fair to its underlying (poor) data base, it infers that the result apply to a greater population or the general public.
That's what I call a lie, because it's done intentionally.

It would be a lie if they had left out how these polls were taken, the error margin, etc. At least in this article, this is not the case. So you're wrong about that part.

The bad thing is not using the statistics or that statistics `misrepresents' something or gives a bias as was initially claimed. It contains no information, it's just popcorn, entertainment instead of education.

[hyteckit]

Originally Posted by Chuckit 

What useful information did it have? As I said, it doesn't tell us how they felt before and it doesn't us how they feel now beyond some general feeling of positivity toward Obama's plans. The only concrete information here is "Obama didn't completely bomb."

The poll was quite timely, informative, interesting, and useful.

[hyteckit]

By next year, we'll be coming back to this poll and say 'Wow, Pres. Obama speech did have an impact on passing the Heathcare Bill".

[Chuckit]

Originally Posted by hyteckit 

The poll was quite timely, informative, interesting, and useful.

Then the article must have done a pretty poor job reporting on it.

[smacintush]

Originally Posted by hyteckit 

By next year, we'll be coming back to this poll and say 'Wow, Pres. Obama speech did have an impact on passing the Heathcare Bill".

Yeah…a negative one. He is losing the faith of more and more non-liberals everyday.

Perhaps when we are staring down the barrel of 10% unemployment he ought to "determined" to deal with that? Oh wait, if the economy recovered he wouldn't as easily be able to demagogue about how much people NEEEEEED a government healthcare bailout.

[CreepDogg]

Originally Posted by smacintush 

Yeah…a negative one. He is losing the faith of more and more non-liberals everyday.

This would imply he had their faith at some point. Is there a poll that shows that?

[SpaceMonkey]

Originally Posted by Chuckit 

How is it not sloppy journalism to base a whole article around one piece of poor-quality information?

There are a lot of articles out there that are entirely devoted to reporting pointless minutia -- read the AP wire sometime. I don't think the information being reported on here is "poor quality" in the sense that it's somehow bad or misleading. It's just limited in its applicability. The article clearly states as such. I think that's exactly the opposite of "sloppy." Whether you think the article is interesting is another question entirely. If CNN spent money to commission a poll you can bet they are going to write about the results. They did so in a completely accurate way. If they had not written about it, I am positive that someone would have charged them for bias in "covering up" the results of a poll because it might have shown Obama in a bad light or something.

And if I really heard from my sister that her hairdresser's cousin's mechanic said Obama was a hermaphrodite, I suppose you think that would make for a legitimate news story too? Just because some information is true doesn't mean it's useful or complete and certainly doesn't mean it's worth writing a whole story about.

You are talking about reporting hearsay which is something completely different. That would be sloppy.

Pointing out that the story you're writing is a POS doesn't excuse you for writing crap.

What is your complaint? That the story is stupid? That's fine with me. I'm just saying it's not ideologically biased.