Posts by simon g
Last ←Newer Page 1 2 3 4 5 Older→ First
-
Hard News: Where are all the polls at?, in reply to simon g,
Also the Herald online still doesn't understand how to use quotation marks. Comments (from English? We can only guess) are embedded in the article. Sigh.
-
NZ Herald has a new online poll. So it looks like Digipoll has gone.
They've broken down the numbers into various demographics, as they used to do with Digipoll. There was always a question about the size of those samples (taken from within the overall thousand), and we're none the wiser now.
As per my earlier post, presumably the Herald has more data from the same poll, so we can expect a party vote headline later, maybe tomorrow. (The polling dates and data don't change, only the timing of the Big Reveal).
-
The polls (traditional) are generally accurate. The reporting of them generally isn't. Obviously, that's not the fault of the pollsters themselves.
One irritant for me is TV1 and TV3 reporting "our latest poll" over several days. e.g. On a Monday, they'll give the main party vote numbers. Then they will link questions on specific issues (housing, tax etc) to stories later in the week. Always invoking "our latest poll", which is in fact the same one - the same respondents - from before. That may be OK in the quiet years between election campaigns, but when things are moving this fast it can be misleading, if not meaningless.
It also means the same respondents get reported as "news" several times over. Always with "we can reveal ..." teasers, when a more accurate statement would be "we found out several days ago, but are only telling you now."
-
There is one other kind of "polling", and the scare quotes are there because it isn't really any kind of polling at all. In previous campaigns, TV1 and TV3 have had text "polls" (self-select and pay, rig as much as you want) during and after leaders' debates. These are worse than useless, and should not be considered by any reputable broadcaster. Worse still, the networks include them in their subsequent news coverage. I don't yet know if they'll be doing them again this time round. Let's hope not.
-
Every time I pop out for lunch a party leader resigns. Bill English may want to deliver sandwiches to my desk.
-
Here's the Green Party xenophobia (yes, that's heavy sarcasm):
-
So, a historic press release then. We can access those online going back to the last century.
It's therefore unreasonable and misleading to cite that as an example of the Greens policy (and people) information being out of date. It isn't.
-
Hard News: Metiria's Problem, in reply to ,
Russell Norman is still listed as the co – leader, compleat with contact details.
Link, please.
-
Speaker: Low-quality language on immigration, in reply to Chris Waugh,
James Shaw's apparently sudden enlightenment on issues of racism and xenophobia is also difficult to accept given the Greens have also often jumped on that same Yellow Peril bandwagon.
Can you give examples of this? It's certainly a gross misrepresentation of James' own views. I think he deserves an apology, frankly.
-
Hard News: Metiria's Problem, in reply to Bart Janssen,
And this is why polls should be banned.
They are increasingly wrong, both inaccurate, that is they fail to predict the actual result, and imprecise, that is they are so variable that anyone with any statistical experience dismisses them as nonsense.
I can't agree with banning, though I wouldn't mind compulsory courses in Stats 101 for all politics journos. Right on cue, here's breaking news: the Greens' support has doubled!!!111!! In just 24 hours!
Obviously it hasn't. But Roy Morgan now has them at 9%. Except, it's late on a Friday night, and not on telly. So it doesn't count.