Fake Polls and Not Believing the Media

Robert Stacy McCain is back with Fake Polls, Real Bias: ‘Shaping the Narrative’ and the Bandwagon Effect

Excuse my long absence from the blog, but I have a day job that keeps me quite busy this time of year. Anyway, I was amused this week by the shocking revelation that fake pollsters were able to get away with their fakery, being cited as reliable by the New York Times and other media outlets.

Wedgewood Polls published fake data, which was then repeated in the New York Times. They were finally ratted out by FiftyPlusOne.

That follows on the heels of an earlier revelation, in August, that another polling company, Median Strategies, was similarly bogus.

It seems that if you tell the Left and the media (but I repeat myself) what they want to hear, and pretend to be an authority, they will swallow whatever you say down whole. My father would have said, "Hook, line, and sinker."

Leveraging the “bandwagon effect” is a fundamental aspect of political bias in the news media. This is true not just in terms of election “horse-race” coverage, but also in shaping which political causes and social issues are considered popular or important. The difference between “fringe” concerns and the social/political “mainstream” is, to a great degree, dependent upon the choices made by the editors of the New York Times and the producers of major network news programs.

I would include the late-night comedy (so called) hosts. Could this be why the Left is so outraged at the impending changes at CNN? Because I don't know anyone younger than myself who still watches network news.

The gold nugget:

The polls may be fake, but the bias is real.

There is more.