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This paper is from Session 5C: Statistics and journalism

which comes under Topic 5: Statistics education and the wider society             Full topic list

(Monday 3rd, 14:00-15:30)

Building houses on straw polls: a brief look at some current statistical reporting by journalists in New Zealand

Presenter

• Warren Palmer (New Zealand)

Co-author

• Anthony Crawford

Abstract

This paper considers how New Zealand journalists report political polls. Two recent newspaper articles are featured. Perhaps not surprisingly we have detected a tendency for journalists to focus on sample size, to misunderstand the concept of margins of error, and to have little idea as to whether a result is generalisable. We also consider the importance of non–respondents. We wonder if journalists question the validity of survey results they have been given. We ask the question: could a “non–random” convenience survey have as much validity as a more formal survey conducted by a specialist research company?