by Laura M Mauney
Certain newcasters who fell for that balloon boy gimmick, and for the story about that spoiled white woman who splashed acid on her own face, then blamed it on a non-existant homeless, black woman, have been telling us again and again, with absolute, great and pompous authority, that 25% of the people this, and 71% of the people that, and 46% of the people thus, for months, years even… as if their know-it-all pseudo-intellectual predictions and projections represent some kind of true statistical analysis of massive amounts of data that they and no one else have access to because they are the privileged and well paid media.
Worse, once said media folk make known said percentages, a certain new breed of political animal that is being shoved down our throats despite our gagging protests tends to grab hold of the percentages, blabbering them repeatedly in defense of any character flaw he-she possesses that needs defending (often xenophobia or greed).
Truth is, as most of us know, the percentage numbers the media are so fond of reciting are based on polls, usually of fewer than 1,000 people, sometimes a few hundred more, in a nation of well over 100 million active voters (1,000 to 100 million is 00.001%, by the way).
Whenever I see or hear about poll results, especially when they fail to favor my own POV, the first question I think of is, “Who on earth did the pollsters poll?”
And then I ask, “What about people on Internet phone lines, and people who only use cellphones, like me? Do we get polled? What about people who are never home, or who ignore calls from unknown numbers because they are really, really busy all the time?”
(One poll, back in 2002, asserted that the majority of citizens supported the Iraq war. The poll was taken during a nationwide peace march, when millions took to the streets to protest the war. These millions were not home to answer their phones during the poll: thus the result was skewed in favor of war).
Finally, I ask, “Why aren’t these statements about percentages properly qualified? Why don’t the newscasters just tell the truth, as in ‘25% of 900 people polled say that…blah’”?
To me, whether the polls are intelligent enough to serve as true indicators of anything or not, the whole shebang is pretty creepy from the door into the carnival funhouse all the way through to the daylight on the other side.
Political advertisers are paying media outlets wagon-loads of money for air time all day long, every day, money which, in turn, goes to the salaries of the people reporting on and interpreting the polls.
Additionally, sloppy journalism has become so status quo these days that we the people may be numb to it. Mass media theorists figured out the numbing effect of repetitive exposure to certain types of information way back in the day, so I guess that nifty little insight is now being abused for the sake of… what?
For me, this continued neglect by the mass media of what’s best for the people and the nation is just more justification for continuing my petulant news boycotts (whenever I get really pissed, but must still have TV, I watch old movies or fave show repeats; sometimes I even listen to Reggae, or the Beatles, or Jazz).
It’s also justification for continuing my spending moratorium against certain products and businesses - ongoing for almost 3 years now. From here forward, I think I will ferret out businesses that are members of the US Chamber and do whatever I can to boycott them, too. That’ll be tough, but I bet there are a few changes I can make to make the right kind of difference in our economic recovery.
I’ll also continue to vote in every election, midterm, quarter term, full term, just to make sure I do not ever get mis-filed in the so-called “enthusiasm gap.”
What I really would like, however, is the ability to “like” or “dislike,” with the click of a mouse, TV newscasters, commentators, interviewees, news stories, and political ads, just as we get to do on Facebook or the way big websites, like Google, choose content, and that THAT statistical data could be used to determine which person, story or ad stays on the air…kind of like big brother in reverse, with all the power going to the people. Wouldn’t that be so super creepy, and wonderful at the same time? :)
I guess I just made every media buyer in the country a personal enemy, but honestly, at this stage in the game, I really don’t care anymore.
Happy Halloween!
