CNN Junk Science: “Audience Reaction” Meters Entertainment, Not Polling
It’s Entertainment; not Polling:
Former Gallup Pollster Lampoons CNN’s “Audience Reaction Meters” used in Presidential Debates
Special to Stinky Journalism
by David W. Moore
Still wonder what-the-heck those squiggly lines are at the bottom of your CNN screen during the Presidential debates?
David W. Moore, the author of The Opinion Makers: An Insider Exposes The Truth Behind The Polls, and former senior editor at the Gallup Poll for thirteen years will tell you the folly of this pseudo-science.
Mr. Moore lampoons CNNs use of live Audience Reaction Meters during the Presidential debates as junk science. He tells you where the 25-year-old hand meter technology came from and how it’s used in the debates, is completely counter to the concept of focus groups. He writes, [focus groups] are designed to obtain in-depth responses from the participants, who actually discuss the issues with each other and arrive at more considered views than what polls normally measure.
Moore argues that CNN has presented a 32 member groups reactions to candidates comments (shown in squiggly lines [0-100 with 0 equaling bad and 100, good]) as representative of American without one scintilla of scientific basis.
Should Americans really care what 32 people from Ohio think?
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by David W. Moore
image: Stinky Journalism
Source: Latest Journalism News Updates
