I don’t understand how any (supposedly) responsible news organization could do the things that FOX has done. Furthermore, I don’t see how they could honestly call themselves “fair and balanced” — their slogan — after all the stupid things they’ve done and continue to do.
I’m gonna focus on one thing in particular (and hopefully destroy them on it): biased polls and a horrifying abuse of statistics.
If there’s anything that you learn in a basic data management or statistics course, it’s that surveys can be easily engineered to be biased; to produce intentionally skewed results.
That’s what FOX does.
Anger poll
Questions
Take the following poll question as an example:
Does the ‘Reconciliation’ Gambit Make You Angry?
What does that question do, in terms of data collection?
- Sampling bias. The question is clearly targeted at those who feel strongly about the issue, because those are the vocal minorities interested in persuading others of their view. Now, since FOXNews.com is a clearly conservative news source, the visitors to the site will, logically, not include many liberals who would have voted negative to this poll question. As a result, the sample is not representative of the population, producing skewed results.
Choices
What did that question look like on their site?
How biased are the choices?
“You decide”: are the choices biased?
- Yes, yes of course.
- Unsure, but if you’re asking, doesn’t that mean it’s biased?
- No, but maybe it’s biased.
Obviously I’m satirizing their choices. If you read the wording of each option, TWO of the options support the data that FOX wants to collect.
Since when did unsure agree with yes?
Moreover, since when did no contradict no?! “No, it doesn’t make me angry, but they’re still using a loophole.” That’s definitely a biased choice.
The “Other” Choice
All right, so this is probably the choice that someone would pick if they, like me, disagree with all the options and their wording. What if I think “it doesn’t make me angry because it’s not a loophole, it’s a procedure?”
The problem with that is, other is substantially underrepresented when FOX airs results or makes a big deal of them. Right now, 94% say it makes them angry, and that’s the only data they care about when they’re publicizing the results.
Who cares that some extremist decided to write a lengthy explanation of their choice under “other”? That’s not a statistic that matters.
So the “other” choice is just there to give the poll a guise of fairness.
The Extraneous Text
Everything they’ve posted in front of the poll question is designed to steer voters towards one option. For the question above, they asked:
President Obama unveiled his revised health care reform plan on Wednesday. The buzz word is “reconciliation,’ a rarely used legislative maneuver designed to resolve budget differences but one that could also be used to push through the Democrats’ health agenda by a simple majority vote. Are you angry that Obama and the Dems are resorting to using “reconciliation”?
I added emphasis to the key manipulating words above.
I think it’s plainly obvious that words like “maneuver”, “resorting to”, “agenda” (as in hidden agenda) have subtle connotations that the voter’s subconscious mind picks up on.
UPDATE: How could I have forgotten to analyze the word “gambit”? The concise Oxford English Dictionary defines it as “an action or remark calculated to gain an advantage.” You tell me that isn’t a loaded question.
In Short…
That particular poll was biased. Let’s briefly critique another one.
Victory poll
Statisticians would shoot them for this one. Well, not as much as for the previous one.
The question is fine here (except for the ambiguous definition of the term victory), but the choices are terrible. Again, there’s the issue with the “Other (post a comment)” choice because it is far easier for someone to pick another option than to take the effort to write a comment — that choice basically means nothing.
Irresponsible or is it just me?
The “No” option is an exaggeration. 2700 pages, apparently, is a lie (or a gross exaggeration). The official H.R. 4872 (reconciliation) bill is 2310 pages, and the Senate bill previously passed by the Senate weighed in at around 2400.
Sampling bias
Again, this poll will not yield accurate results for three reasons (I’ll admit that they overlap):
- The visitor demographic of FOXNews.com is largely conservative. This may not be the same proportion as in all of the United States.
- Furthermore, through the efforts of liberals who are attempting to get their voice heard, young Twitter users are flocking to this poll to vote “Yes”. THESE votes will, again, fail to reflect the population, which is perhaps why this is labelled “not a scientific poll” by their own admission.
- Lastly, the unsure option is quite unimportant in this poll because those who are unsure, generally, are not the vocal participants in these kinds of forums. A lot of Americans are unsure because they don’t know all of the facts, and this poll simply cannot deal with that part of the population that is underrepresented.
How to spin the results
Currently, “Yes” and “No” are nearly tied at 47% and 49% respectably. What would happen if “Yes” had the majority vote?
Given the wording of the choice, it wouldn’t be far-fetched to claim that “over 95% of respondents believe that the bill is flawed”.
After all, even the “Yes” voters have to concede that it’s “not perfect”.
What is this. Yes, I’ll readily concede that it’s not perfect, but that’s because I like the Canadian system better. There might only be one way to be perfect but infinite ways to be wrong or imperfect, and putting that there doesn’t help anyone determine how to get better health care reform. Moreover, it deprives voters of the chance to vote “Yes, it’s awesome.”
What can we do about this?
Nothing. If “freedom of the press” and “freedom of expression” are interpreted in such an unlimited way, any of these ugly tactics can be defended as their view on things.
Freedoms come with responsibilities, of course, and it is irresponsible for this kind of polling and the kind of news reports that FOX News airs to claim to be “fair and balanced”. Boycotting FOX News doesn’t really work, because one would be leaving FOXNews.com with all the conservatives who would love to dominate their polls.
“Fair and balanced” might well be a joke; it would be a perfect sarcastic tagline for FOX.
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It’s the end of another year and the end of a ground-breaking decade. Let’s look back at what’s been accomplished in the years of 2000–2009, focusing on technology.
Technology
Windows has entered a new era
The decade—indeed, the century—began with Windows 2000, which I consider the first great version of the operating system. XP was the version that brought widespread success, and people just seem to refuse to upgrade; even today, almost three quarters of the computers on the net are on XP.
Despite the dismal failure of Windows Vista, it too brought change, which was followed by the enhancements of Windows 7. Compare my desktop today to the ugly screens of a decade ago:
Apple deserves an honourable mention for the ground-breaking work they’ve done on the Mac, elevating it to a newly trendy status.
Portable media players have completely changed
A decade ago, CD players and tape-based Walkmans were still the norm for ‘portable’ audio players. The iPod, launched in 2001, entirely changed the game. (I suppose this and the iPhone were the “comeback of the decade”.) It was no longer a device that played removable media. That was followed by thousands of other portable media players, to which the public generally refers inaccurately as “MP3 players”, reflecting the popularity of the 15-year-old MP3 format that has also been notorious for illegal file sharing (see below).
Cell phones and mobile devices have become ubiquitous
These devices used to be ugly, huge and heavy objects. As we move into 2010, cell phones have become more compact (usually this means thinner and lighter) and more powerful.
In China, about 739 million people have cell phones; that’s more than there are Internet users in China (which is about 360 million).
Mobile devices have become truly powerful. The iPhone, purportedly the most popular cell phone of 2009, is one of the biggest platforms for software development. And it has a touch screen. RIM’s BlackBerry, initially launched in 1999, is the most popular smartphone among business users.
Ordinary people begin to embrace ultra-portable netbooks for lightweight computing. The move to mobile is probably the most noticeable trend in end-user gadgetry in this decade. Continue reading »
No, I’m not dead. My last post was published quite a while ago, but I’m still alive and well — for the most part.
Concerning the human swine flu, it’s important to note that hype and paranoia may not really be that far from the truth. It is a serious health risk, and the World Health Organization recently issued a level 4 alert.
At least the City of Toronto has no known swine flu cases thus far.
Stay safe and be careful!
What do we hope to see in 2009? I mean this both personally, and in reference to our society as a whole. Continue reading »
In this post, I am going to talk first about technological expectations, then some of the other societal changes that I expect, followed by a more personal section.
I am very disappointed in all of the candidates — by this I mean that I would neither support Barack Obama & Joe Biden, nor John McCain & Sarah Palin, nor Stephen Harper, Stéphane Dion, Jack Layton, and Elizabeth May.
That having been said, enjoy this video of the American Vice Presidential debate yesterday evening, in case you missed it.
This is indeed a political issue, and one of great importance. In this recently-declassified and released video, a senior CSIS spy and a foreign affairs official, as well as a woman from the CIA, are questioning Khadr at Guantanamo Bay.
It has sparked outrage and has also made some feel that this “terrorist” is being treated fairly.
You should know, though, that Pentagon papers accidentally released in February of this year showed that even though Khadr was present during the firefight in which a grenade killed a U.S. soldier, there was no evidence they had which proved that he threw the grenade.
Watch and vote.
EDIT: apparently YouTube removed the interrogation video. Hmm…
It seems like Bush’s popularity is ever decreasing. With the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling that the denial of habeas corpus to detainees at Guantánamo Bay is unconstitutional and that those prisoners have a right to challenge their imprisonment in the civilian courts, it’s no longer necessarily true that “the law doesn’t extend to Cuba”.
Though the rulings did not outlaw the prison outright, the rulings do somewhat approach the human rights issues that the U.S. is responsible for. And how has “Reporters Without Borders” reacted to this news? As of June 13, 2008, they haven’t, but still have half of their web site dedicated to attacking China and supporting the boycott of the Olympic games. Look at (click) this screenshot; do they even mention Guantánamo Bay?
Now, back on topic. This sort of decision is truly what the judicial branch of government is supposed to do: discuss the constitutional issues and re-think the policies of the executive and legislative branches. Unfortunately, Bush wants to bypass this ruling through an act of Congress.
And how does that make you feel?
Find more about this on Google News, subscribe to our feed, or write a comment.
Civil Liberties vs. National Security in a Post-9/11 World (ISBN 1-59102-234-7):
This is an excellent book that I started reading recently. It discusses various issues surrounding the U.S. government following the events of September 11, 2001. The major sections in this book include:
- History of civil liberty issues in wartime (inc. an excerpt from another highly-recommended book, All the Laws but One)
- Domestic surveillance and the USA PATRIOT Act
- Racial profiling
- Torture
- “Enemy combatants” and the detainment of foreigners
- Recent developments such as the Abu Ghraib prison scandal
More after the jump.
