Pundits, Polls and Protests. How the Media Has it so Wrong

I've posted often about the illegitimacy of polls that attempt to predict the results of a mythical election. Most are spun and contrived and at the end of the day, mean very little until the writ is dropped and the campaigning begins.

I read the book, The Newsmongers: How the Media Distort the Political News, By Mary Anne Comber and Robert S. Mayne, and though written in 1986, before the rightward migration of our press, there are many observations that still apply today.

And the course that was written of twenty-five years ago, may have reached the end, with polling firms becoming obsolete. Because their "results" fail to capture the public mood.

Stephen Harper has many unresolved issues and while he has been able to put them on the back burner, focusing on his re-election by spending hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars on self-promotion ads, the big issues are still with us. He has managed to duck everyone of these, by avoiding the media and thereby avoiding us. But we will raise them during the campaign.

At or near the top of the list are the two prorogations for his personal benefit. One to avoid a coalition takeover and the other to avoid having to answer questions as to what he knew and when, about torture in Afghanistan.

Another is the attacks on peaceful protesters and journalists during the G-20 weekend in Toronto. He was behind the decision to hold it there, and it was he who gave out a massive contract to a foreign company to handle security.

Then of course there are all of the little things, that are far from little. The purchase of fighter jets deemed unfit by every other country but Canada and Israel. The corporate tax cuts despite the fact that an overwhelming majority of Canadians are opposed to them. The waste of tax dollars on signs and TV spots. Billions for prison expansion when our crime rate is the lowest in our history. The hostile takeovers of arms length agencies. Fox News North. Avoiding the media and thereby avoiding us.

The list goes on.

There is an excellent indepth piece in the Winnipeg Free Press: Pollsters advise voters to be wary of polls ahead of possible spring vote

Canada's notoriously competitive pollsters have some surprisingly uniform advice about the parade of confusing and conflicting numbers they're about to toss at voters ahead of a possible spring election: Take political horse race polls with a small boulder of salt.

"Pay attention if you want to but, frankly, they don't really mean anything," sums up Andre Turcotte, a pollster and communications professor at Carleton University. He has even more pointed advice for news organizations that breathlessly report minor fluctuations in polling numbers: "You should really consider what is the basis for your addiction and maybe enter a ten-step program."

Have you been reading Eric Grenier's nonsense? It's like watching an episode of the Keystone Cops. His meanderings tickle the funny bone, just before you roll your eyes in disbelief. Poor boy. He does try, though his bias is overwhelming.

Social media is where it's at now. The right-wing media and the high priced pollsters have spun themselves out. We no longer listen to them, but instead listen to us.