VITAMEDIAS
Poll Crazy: Because so many surveys are commissioned by news organizations, this is not just a question of polling etiquette. It's one of media ethics as well. "There's always the serious question of what is your journalistic purpose," says Al Tompkins, who teaches broadcasting and online journalism at the Poynter Institute. "You don't ever want to do anything that would end up compromising your journalistic integrity."
Of course, where you draw the integrity line is quite subjective.
Some think the media need to stop using polls as much as they do, silly questions or no silly questions. Mike Littwin, a Rocky Mountain News columnist, says journalists should rely less on surveys. "It's religion," he says of the media's infatuation with public opinion polls. "We have come to believe in them even when we don't."
When poll results are ambiguous, journalists often find some meaning in them anyway. Tompkins says when a news organization has forked over the money for a survey, it wants an answer. "And it's not much news if a poll turns up inconclusive," he says. "I think news organizations feel some pressure" to get a poll to say something that it might not.