You hear and read about them on the evening news, in the newspapers, on the radio during your commute to work and on the Internet. Media outlets take one supposedly accurate opinion statistic and spin it into an entire story, believing we will swallow their reports without blinking. But too often, polls are more propaganda than actual news. Miss Fitzpatrick knows what she s talking about.
Media tend to make inaccurate predictions of election outcomes based on faulty polling.
And, of course, many candidates tend to gear their proposals toward poll outcomes. However, those outcomes are more often based on general questions that skim the surface of the issue. Also consider how long the poll was conducted. Overnight polls are error-prone because of difficulty culling a truly random sample of respondents and the likelihood of bias due to immediate reactions to media coverage. Characteristics of respondents.