It’s a poll; it must be news (example no. 4,287,563)

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Top story on the BFP website today: “Faith in Vermont State Government Declines.” First sentence:

Vermonters have relatively little faith in their state government, and significantly less than five years earlier, a new survey finds.

Wow, “significantly less.” That is big news, I guess. But exactly how far has Vermonters’ faith in state government fallen?

Only 15 percent of survey respondents possessed a great deal of confidence in state government, 4 percentage points lower than in a 2005 survey.

Oh. Four percent. A decline roughly the same as the poll’s margin of error, which happened over a five-year period. So even if the poll’s margin of error was zero, this is a decline of less than one percent per year.

Now, having only 15 percent expressing a lot of confidence isn’t exactly a healthy situation. It’d be nice to see more faith in government — and maybe we will, now that the guy who oversaw this “significant” decline is out of office. But this story is a prime example of editorial laziness: taking a statistically insignificant poll result, and splattering it all over the front page.  

5 thoughts on “It’s a poll; it must be news (example no. 4,287,563)

  1. Maybe it’s because many VT legislators have lost touch with the average working Vermonter, meaning they keep resisting doing what would seem to be a no-brainer, raising taxes on the Vermonters who can afford it and who probably wouldn’t complain much if it did happen (outside of a few, who would whine in the press and generate headlines like “Wealthy Say They’ll Leave, If They’re Not Coddled.” What you hear often about our legislature (that it is dominated by retired folks, trust-funders, lawyers and corporate muckity mucks)is more or less true. Not many working folks have the luxory of entertaining an idea to participate in our citizen legislature because their work situation (and livelihood) won’t allow it. That leaves the “haves” to watch over the “have-nots,” and that makes VT a microcosm of the national gov’t. Granted, things are better in VT, but money is still polluting our system as well.  

  2. they keep resisting doing what would seem to be a no-brainer, raising taxes on the Vermonters who can afford it

    His continued insistence that there is no more tax revenue to generate.  C’mon, man, show some courage like Snelling.  And stop buying into the discredited supply-side voodoo.

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