How not to report an opinion poll
Written by Mark Pack on 13th April 2008 – 12:57 pmYou’re a Sunday newspaper. You commission a poll from YouGov. It shows the Conservatives back up to the level of support in an opinion poll that you commissioned from YouGov in December. So how do you report it?
If you’re the Sunday Times, you report it as the highest Conservative rating for since 1992. Oops.
Posted in Polls
13th April 2008 at 3:34 pm
It’s even more misleading than that: the Tories hit 45% in the Sunday Times / YouGov poll taken 13th - 14th December (although the lead over Labour wasn’t as great - 13 points to 16 today).
14th April 2008 at 12:12 pm
More appalling opinion poll reporting in yesterday’s Observer - managed to construe the poll as showing Paddick out of the race (despite apparently the underlying poll - not disclosed in the paper! - showing an increase on first preferences) - clearly designed to squeeze voters when there is no need in the AV setup…
The Observer report also said that the poll showed a swing to Boris in the net result as also vouched by the Tories.. when UK Polling Report shows that the detail actually indicates the opposite… I thought there was a code about this sort of thing supposed to be fair and quote the sample etc…