A commentator said she was surprised that jobs and health were in that order, that unemployment was not above health care. While not a biased opinion, the comment was needless, if not misleading, and showed a lack of basic appreciation for how polls - scientific ones - are conducted. There was no consideration of the deeper reasons behind such poll results. It brought to mind my frustration with the bumbling by journalists, politicians, activists, and citizens, on many occasions, in the interpretation of opinion polls. The numbers from polls tell us something, but like goods and services, we can try to use them properly, or we can use peanut butter to brush our teeth (so to speak).
Think about it: how many people are jobless versus how many need health care? Except those who think they are invincible, everyone has some interest in health care. Not everyone has an interest in getting a job, as so many have one. The percentage in this and other polls simply reflect that some folks who are making a living (the vast majority, since most who need to work are currently working) are not concerned about others being jobless.
If there were a poll of only the unemployed, underemployed, and those affected by those factors, the order of those concerns would be very DIFFERENT. It is so simple, yet the media seems to screw it up so often: Polls reflect views of real people and their interests, whether they are informed or uninformed, self-concerned or outward looking, practical or unrealistic. Kind or mean. Issues-aware or couldn't care less.
It would be a constructive improvement if journalists, even the quick-shooting ones on TV, would restrain themselves from reporting poll results then editorializing, with bold ignorance, about a poll's percentage numbers. Polls are just data, and being "surprised" by the order of concerns from a sampling of a majority, when it is actually very logical, is no way to inform. It is lending itself to misinforming the public.
The public deserves less random editorializing in its news coverage, on TV, in newspapers, magazines and news sites, and on radio. It would be notable - honorable - if more journalists strived to handle the opininons they insert into reporting as they do disclosures of corporate relationships between their empployer and any other company when they mention that company in a news story.
By the way, I used to work in media, newspapers and several small magazines. With that perspective, I am constantly irritated by the accidental (and not so accidental) biases on news shows, and I think TV news shows are generally doing a poor job of separating fact and opinion on a far broader scale than one misunderstood poll. Also, I really really believe it can be changed, but somehow ego overtakes honor, but I keep hoping. Full disclosure.
- Jon