How to manipulate an opinion poll
Monday, 24 May 2010
I hate papers or whatever media means which support the ruling power. Whichever that power may be. During the social-democrat ruling there were dozens of papers and magazines ready to praise the then PM Adrian Nastase. Now the only difference is that there are fewer publications on the market, as many went bankrupt. I’m not going to give examples of such publications, but an example of how to manipulate the information needs to be stressed.

An opinion poll is released to the media. It reveals issues related to corruption, taxes, the direction Romania is going to, confidence in political leaders. A newspaper decides to publish the story. The headline reads ‘No party is able to fight corruption, opinion poll says.’ Nice. Now I read the story.

The issue is that the above mentioned idea is obvious. None of the parties has proven abilities to fight corruption properly, with resounding results. So practically, that’s no news. I read the story further on. Somewhere towards the end, a paragraph reads: ‘Answering the question if the following are capable to rule the country, the respondents replied NO for Traian Basescu (52.3 pc) and YES – 37 pc. Liberal leader Crin Antonescu is considered capable by 43.3 pc and incapable by 34.4 pc, while for social-democrat leader Victor Ponta the answers were 32.7 pc positive and 30 pc negative.’

Well, that’s information!  More than half of Romanians consider the incumbent president incapable of ruling Romania! But the quoted newspaper did consider however more relevant the fact that no Romanian party is able to fight corruption, something everybody knows.

I believe media is meant to criticize the political power and to draw the attention when it takes wrong decisions. Right now there are hundreds of reasons to do that. Such poor manipulations, as the one I stressed above, simply make me sick. But who cares?

Bucharest Herald | Maxy