20 Questions A Journalist Should Ask About Poll Results:
# Who did the poll?
# Who paid for the poll and why was it done?
# How many people were interviewed for the survey?
# How were those people chosen?
# What area (nation, state, or region) or what group (teachers,lawyers, Democratic voters, etc.) were these people chosen from?
# Are the results based on the answers of all the people interviewed?
# Who should have been interviewed and was not? Or do response rates matter?
# When was the poll done?
# How were the interviews conducted?
# What about polls on the Internet or World Wide Web?
# What is the sampling error for the poll results?
# Who’s on first?
# What other kinds of factors can skew poll results?
# What questions were asked?
# In what order were the questions asked?
# What about "push polls?"
# What other polls have been done on this topic? Do they say the same thing? If they are different, why are they different?
# What about exit polls?
# What else needs to be included in the report of the poll?
# So I've asked all the questions. The answers sound good. Should we report the results?
