Sibling Rivalry: 'Wash Post' and 'Newsweek' Polls Clash on NSA

[cal04]

They may be owned by the same company, but two polls commissioned by The Washington Post and Newsweek magazine on the important issue of public approval of the National Security Agency's gathering of phone records produced quite different results.

The Newsweek poll released today found that 53% of Americans believe that reports that the NSA has been secretly collecting the phone records of U.S. citizens goes too far in invading people's privacy. Some 41% feel it is a necessary tool to combat terrorism. But on Friday, a widely-publicized Washington Post/ABC survey revealed, to the contrary, that 63% of Americans said they found the NSA program to be an acceptable way to investigate terrorism, including 44% who strongly endorsed the effort. Only 35% said the program was unacceptable.

So what happened? Most likely views changed that much in one day after more negative media reports (including many from conservative commentators such as MSNBC's Joe Scarborough) surfaced. The Washington Post survey took place before many Americans had heard about, or thought about, the implications. The Newsweek Poll also reached twice as many Americans.

The Washington Post/ABC survey was conducted Thursday, just after the NSA news broke via USA Today, and reached just 502 citizens. Newsweek polled 1007 Americans on both Thursday and Friday. It found that even 27% of Republicans voiced disapproval of the phone records program. The Newsweek results were pretty stark: 57% of Americans say the administration has gone too far in expanding presidential power, while only 38% say they have not. The president's job approval rating in this poll declined one point to 35%.

http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1002502415

[fooj]

1. MSNBC had a poll up that CLEARLY STATED 85% AGAINST

domestic spying...

Check it out.

I was soooooo pissed that I had to fire off an e-mail. I tried to resist "the bait" but I just couldn't help it. I'm only human. LOL.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x2622161

Peace.

[stepnw1f]

5. EXACTLY (nt)

I don't even think 53% is legit. I remeber seeing the poll you mention. I'd say this is a matter of "push-polling", and not because of what has been publicized. The wording of MSNBC's poll was striaght.... this ABC/WPO poll was misleading garbage.

[0rganism]

9. online polls are NOT reliable

You may know the routine already, but...

1) online polls are self-selected rather than a random or weighted distribution
2) in this case, they oversample a privacy-minded and news-aware online community
3) they are prone to automated swaying via scripted interactions of various sorts

Even the moronic ABC push-poll is probably a more accurate reflection of opinion in the general population, and I expect the Newsweek poll is indicative of a rapid trend towards disapproval as the topic becomes a matter of increasingly common knowledge.

[Halliburton]

2. the WP poll was total BS

hopefully more polls will come out and embarrass them some more.

[progressivebydesign]

3. but you notice that the poll favoring the spying was the only one pushed?

That stupid ass poll is all I heard about yesterday, and it made me wonder about the sanity of my fellow americans.

[stepnw1f]

6. On No... Americans are Sane..... Just Purposely Mislead, Then Lied To

Americans are trusting, honest people.... the media is not.

[deacon]

14. And too, other media outlets where jumping on the poll

spreading the false news. Another big black eye for MSM.

[WillyT]

7. It Was Also WAY Too Soon For That 1st Poll To Have Meant Anything !!!

The story had just broken, and people had not had time to digest and discuss the implications.

I kept wondering yesterday why the MSM kept referring to a poll that meant nothing!

But then... we know who the MSM REALLY works for, don't we now???

:mad:

[Phoebe Loosinhouse]

4. Talk about death spiral! What is up with the WP?

Lately, they have been just pathetic:

Their loser ombudsman Howell and her antics and misrepresentation of Abramhoff and the subsequent pulling of the comments to her
Dana Millbank and his snarky commentary on subjects of large import
The crappy palgerizing conservative blogger they had to fire after 10 minutes
This ridiculous poll
Bob Woodward and his situational journalistic ethics
among other things

And then you have USA Today just pulling a huge, huge story. It was way better than the half-baked story on the same topic that the formerly respected NYT did earlier.

[Divine Discontent]

8. sorta showing...

their TRUE colors, aren't they? they might as well be the Fox News newspaper....

www.cafepress.com/warisprofitable <----- CHECK THIS OUT! the best in anti-bush pro DEM wares!!!!

[Loge23]

10. WSJ also shows 56% against

The WSJ is also showing 56% against any collection of records at all.
Still, some 23% are willing to give the government carte blanche with another 21% favoring a slower erosion of rights.
www.wsj.com/question

[peaches2003]

11. WA Post Questions

Heard the questions that were asked on the WA Post/ABC poll. On one of the AAR shows, I think- anyway, they were read verbatim. RIDICULOUS questions- very long , very biased wording and one question had double negatives so that you could easily understand the question and it could be interpreted in the reverse of what you thought you were answering. No way that poll is valid.

[Nomen Tuum]

12. Ah the BATTLE of the PRE$$TITUTE$

I don't know which one I despise more, the asskissers at the WHORE$HINGTON PO$T or the Michael Sissy Issykoffs at NEW$PEAK...

[deacon]

13. Did they want to be right or first? Irresponsible journalism

again and again and again........

[robbedvoter]

15. How much shall we tweak?" "Aw, let's split the difference!"

There was some negotiatin' there to bring 85% down to 53!

[chelsea0011]

16. As this story gets rolling the numbers will eventually all show

that the public is overwhelmingly against Bush and his illegal activities.

[The Backlash Cometh]

17. God bless Newsweek!

I wouldn't even wipe my ass with the Washington Post Poll.

[Nothing Without Hope]

18. thread on the bogus WaPo "poll":

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=364x1174702
thread title (5-12-06 GD): Bogus WaPo/ABC poll on Americans' "support" of NSA spying-FIGHT THIS SCAM!

It's all laid out at Firedoglake, with additional points in the Replies. For example, the WaPo/ABC poll was conducted by a company whose primary clients are TELECOMMUNICATIONS PROVIDERS - Telcos. Conflict of interest, much?

[IndyJones]

19. Some of those polls are complete bullshit. I've spoken with no one

who approves of it...not one single person...dems or republicans.

Faux news reported today that it was no big deal, the reporter knows people who use the data, it's all borning numbers. I was so livid after hearing that bullshit report.

I don't believe for one second that the majority of Americans approve of that.

[Paradise]

20. thanks for posting this. n/t

[drm604]

21. What bothers me

is that we now have two completely contradictory polls both being uncritically publicized.

It's obvious to us here that at least the WP/ABC poll is flawed at best.

So, why would someone publish such flawed poll results when it was likely that other polls would come out that would contradict them? They are doing what is called "muddying the waters".

Most of us understand the subtleties and issues about these polls. We understand that some poll-takers may be biased. We understand that questions can be worded to be confusing or misleading, and we understand that the results can be reported in a confusing and misleading manner. We also understand that a properly conducted scientific poll can reflect a very good approximation of truth. The general public, for the most part, doesn't understand, or even think about, these issues. What they will take from this is "you can't believe polls, they contradict each other".

I submit that this may be the bigger effect of this. This not only hurts the credibility (in the minds of the general public) of subsequent polls on this issue, it also hurts the credibility of other polls on current and future issues.

Presidential approval ratings down? "You can't believe polls!"

Election results completely and glaringly at odds with the polls? "You can't believe polls!"

This is insidious.

On edit: corrected grammar