Listening to a recap of Republican obstructionism during Thursday’s healthcare “summit,” I was struck by how many times gentlemen of the opposition insisted that “the American people don’t want this” or “the majority of the American people oppose this bill.” These and similar assertions refer to polling that, as far as I know, has never been publicly vetted for choice of words or for selection of participants. Try as I would to find a statistical analysis on the web of the poll that supposedly shows a majority of Americans opposing healthcare reform, I failed utterly. Like most people, I often ask myself who exactly are they polling. No one I know was officially queried regarding this healthcare bill. If I were polled, the phrasing of the questions would be extremely significant to the manner in which I would respond. I think this is especially true now that so many Americans identify themselves as “independent,” and so are disinclined to simply ratify one party line or the other.
Realizing full well that I am speaking into a vacuum, I want to propose some new ethical guidelines for citing policy polling results in a public forum. I know the American public is thought to have an extremely short attention span, so media outlets always want to cut to the chase before their audience tunes-out; but it is simply irresponsible to report the results of a poll, even from a supposedly non-partisan source, without identifying the process for selecting participants, size of the representative group, and their geographic distribution. That information should then be posted prominently on the websites of all news organizations so that it is easily accessible by the general public. It should be demanded of any pundit or politician who cites poll results, that they “footnote” the citing with a link to the data regarding that particular poll. I know this sounds unreasonably burdensome, but when we can’t trust even the people we send to Congress to tell the truth anymore, what choice is there other than to mandate disclosure, much in the way networks require stock analysts to reveal their holdings? By the way, that was a neat trick performed by the Sunlight Foundation, streaming a tally of the worthy members’ healthcare industry contributions as they squared-off live in the healthcare summit. ( I couldn’t access it, myself. because my poor old eMac can’t be upgraded, but that’s the subject for a different rant.) Don’t you just wish that feature could be repeated every time an elected official appeared on television to make his/her case regarding policy of one sort or another?
It’s time we recognize that media outlets and the platforms they afford to public figures far outweigh documented fact in shaping public opinion and, therefore, public policy. The loop is rapidly becoming a closed circuit propelling public-pleasing media to shape public opinion which in turn shapes public policy while at the same time reinforcing public-pleasing media’s inclination to shape their offerings to please the public. This relationship can sustain itself quite well without delving too deeply into the factual big picture. The public opinion poll is a way of distilling a new level of navel-gazing “fact,” free from the encumbrance of overarching truth, and with the added potential to subtly further a political agenda. I can offer no better example of the duplicity of polling than that classic from my childhood: “Nine out of ten Doctors smoke Camels.”
That’s all I’ve got. It was Sunday, and I found myself going to that place where we all tilt at windmills from time to time.
All the coverage I heard about the summit concentrated on Republican sound bites, rather than any kind of fact-checking, including a look at “the polls.” On National Public Radio’s same-day reporting, four Republicans were quoted for every Democrat quoted, including the President.
Good luck with the ethics of polling.
NanuqFC
A straw poll only shows which way the hot air blows. ~ Wm. Shakespeare (Casca in Julius Caesar)
We have so much opportunity, we have to stop squandering it!
The Republican “health” care system is Dr Horatio Nelson Jackson being the first to cross the country in an automobile, funded by patent medicine money (40% grain alcohol, no known health benefits)!
The real American health care system, which at one time offered the best health care in the world, was the system which developed the polio vaccine, and instead of seeking profit from it, tried to make it universally available!
Today, Dr. Horatio Nelson Jackson is back on top, and the Republicans mean to keep him there!
But, all we have to do is shout the truth, instead of timidly discussing:
All over the world, health care costs half as much, and offers house calls by doctors!
Holding hands with foreign kings doesn’t follow Republican, Democratic, or American principles!
George W. Bush was never a free market guy! Walmart is not a free market company! China is not a free market country! Anyone who knows what a free market is has known that for years!
Cutting taxes as we go to war is never fiscally responsible! The Iraq war marks the first time we did not raise taxes when we went to war! The Republicans knew they were not being fiscally responsible, and that’s why they kept the cost of war off the books!
The Medicare prescription drug plan was passed by Republicans, and was designed from the beginning to bankrupt America! That’s because Republicans want to see the government so bankrupt that it can’t protect us from Halliburton, from lead jewelry, and nuclear pollution!
Simple truth repeated will win where a thousand mandates will be evaded!