Over the weekend the Winnipeg Free Press released the results of a poll conducted by Probe Research about opolitics and issues. This resulted in an opportunity to provide another lesson in journalism for our listeners, because the story was not in the poll itself, but in the way the paper manipulated the results.
On Tuesday when the CBC released their own results -- from the same poll -- of questions they asked of the electorate, the lesson became a weeklong journey into how mainstream media uses polls to create news and then confuse voters by presenting the information in a twisted manner.
The Free Press reported that the Doer NDP government and PC opposition were tied in popular support among decided voters at 40%, but the riding splits would give the NDP another win at the ballot box.
Our focus was on the Freep's coverage of one issue in the poll questions- about the Crocus Investment Fund scandal.
Freep analyst Mia Rabson repeated the "finding" that only 2% of those polled said the Crocus scandal would affect their voting intentions. She said that this was in spite of the damaging insider leaks about the government ignoring red flags had been before the people while the poll was in the field, and that Premier Doer had skillfully deflected the concerns and disarmed the opposition.
Yet the pollster himself said, he had no idea what the rsult would have been had respondents been asked about Crocus directly. And she neglected to include polling evidence that would have shown, the leaks preceeded the collection of the responses - and also neglected to mention that her newspaper had delayed reporting on some of the leaks until the very last day of the poll, when EVEN more documents were made public which have still not been discussed in the Free Press.
Of course what else did we expect the newspaper to say. The reporters and columnists have to pretend it's a non-issue because they are hopelessly conflicted in covering the Cabinet cover-up, having been the de-facto house propaganda organ for the Fund and mastermind Sherman Kreiner for years until the 'sudden' collapse. And they do this in direct contradiction to the numerous Freep editorials calling for a public inquiry.
* The Dan Lett apologia for Crocus via a "Grit source" had been run up the flagpole weeks ago and was rendered laughable by the reveleations from within the Deprtment of Finance.
* A desperate Frances Russell tried to advance Lett's transparent attempt to rehabilitate Kreiner with her own anonymous-sourced scribblings, in which the fact Crocus had violated the prospectus was considered "debatable" despite admissions in leaked documents and the finding of the Auditor.
* The recent leaks - detailed by the Sun's Tom Brodbeck, which the Freep tried to ignore while the poll was going on - proved the Department of Finance and Minister Greg Selinger were up to their eyeballs in trying to find ways to prop up the Ponzi scheme going back to 2000.
Now Rabson tried to tell us all, only 2% of you cared about Crocus- never mind that the pollster admitted that while it was not a top-of-mind response, he had no way of knowing what the results would have been had people been asked. (By the way, statistically 2% equals the ratio of Crocus investors in the general voting population. Big surprise, that result.)
But they voters polled were asked about their impressions of the Crocus scandal -- just not by the Free Press, but rather by CBC.
And those results of specific Crocus questions asked by CBC blew the last vestiges of Free Press credibility on anything Crocus Fund related out into the orbit of slanted reporting.
To make this simpler, here is a link to the Probe Research results:
http://www.probe-research.com/070322%20CBC%20Crocus%20Press%20Release.pdf
Here is what we explained to our listeners, about what the results REALLY mean, and how Crocus could impact the next provincial election:
54% of all respondents wanted a public inquiry into Crocus.
48% of NDP supporters who answered the poll, wanted a Crocus inquiry.
37% of respondents said Crocus would play an extremely important or some role in how they vote
59% of respondents followed the ongoing Crocus developments either closely or to a limited extent
55% of respondents who followed the scandal closely said it would impact their voting intentions
30% blamed the Doer government in whole or in part, for the collapse of the Fund
20% of those who folowed the scandal closely blamed the Doer government
The real story here, ignored by the Free Press and missed completetly by MSM, is that for a voter who follows Crocus, the more seriously they viewed the role of the NDP government and the more likely the scandal would affect their vote, and that even declared NDP supporters do not buy the standard excuse of Doer and Finance Minister Selinger that they were somehow exonerated from responsibility by the Singleton audit.
A final interesting point was the finding that 63% of those 18-34 paid "little or no attention" to Crocus.
That same demographic is also least likely to have invested in Crocus, least likely to follow the news, and least likely to vote.
Even the breakdowns of the socio-demographic support of the parties was bungled by reporters and their editors. The PC's showed a 10 point lead among high-school graduates; the NDP held an 11 point lead among college drop-outs; and the parties were within the margin of error ( a 2 point gap) in support among University grads.
While the Free Press cited the Tory as only leading among high-school grads, they did not explain how that translated into a statistical tie in the middle income grouping and a 44-38 lead among those voters earning more than $60,000 a year.
And then there is the results of questions about top-of-mind issues. Only months ago pollsters were swearing that health-care was not a concern and infrastructure was the vote-moving issue. The voters apparently missed that pronouncement.
"health care/wait times 34%, infrastructure/roads 14%."
Other results of CBC's poll questions showed that in every category voters felt the NDP had performed worse or stayed the same since their election in 2003 - Health Care (74%), Universities and Colleges (70%), Public schools (77%), Economic management (76%), and Environment issues (68%). Although some pundits claimed that by combining the "better or the same" responses , the poll showed the government was doing fine by voters, we made the point that people vote, to paraphrase Ronald Reagan, on the basis of whether things are better or not. By that measure the Doer government may have reason to feel antsy when voters are asked to judge their record at the ballot box.
Other guests and topics included:
Monday: The Universoity of Winnipeg was threatening staff layoffs unless cutbacks were achieved, all the while planning massive expansion plans - and faculty and students reacted strongly to the skewed priorities as reflected in the administrative hirings by prexy Lloyd Axworthy; and Frank the Italian Barber joined us in studio with his NCAA basketball predictions (UCLA all the way).
Tuesday: Adrienne Batra of the CTF tore into the federal budget as a strange hybrid- Big government conservatism with a side dish of appeasing Quebec with $2 billion; and Jeff Dveris of the Manitoba Motor Dealers Association explained why car dealers felt the feds should have provided incentives to get old higher-pollution beaters off the road rather than tax newer, more fuel efficient SUV's.
Wednesday: Kelly Dehn said we had been way ahead of the curve in identifying car theft and lax criminal sanctions as a serious election issue, as Manitoba Justcie Minister Dave Chomiak headed to Ottawa to lobby for changes to the law to allow for prosecutuion of young offenders; and we were the first to tell Manitobans about the not-so-secret plan of Free Press publisher Andy Ritchie to spend up to $150 million to thwart any move by Quebecor to bring their free morning tab 24 Hours to Winnipeg with his "Project Eclipse".
Thursday: Gord Sinclair tried to blame the Aspers for a security video from the CanWest concourse ending up on YouTube. Junior complained that by showing a native man having a bowel movement in a potted plant while pedestrians walked by, the man's privacy was invaded (as if taking a dump in a public place was a private matter). It seemed to us a self-serving pre-emptive move by Sinclair to play the privacy card in case a video of his admitted verbal abuse and near-assault of a female gas station clerk emerged.
As well, Sports Illustrated had broken a story about a steroid and HGH scandal that found many prominent pro wrestlers including current TNA star Kurt Angle and WWE tag champs Edge and Randy Orton had gotten internet prescriptions filled in 2004/05 by a doctor under FBI investigation, causing a media backlash for WWE heading into Wrestlemania.
Friday: National Post chairman David Asper wrote a scathing rebuttal to Gord Sinclair's column which we read verbatim, as Asper explained what privacy rights really meant and why Sinclair was off-base; We complimented Davey O'Brien's column in the Free Press about the evil of anti-Semitism; A strategic Counsel/CTV poll showed the Harper government with 39% support as the Dion Liberals falter; and CFUN radio in Vancouver was knocked off-air by thieves who broke into their transmitter location and stole the copper (!).
