A Journalist's Guide to Public Opinion Polls

Subjects:

• Communications » Journalism
• Communications » Political Communications
• Political Science » American Politics/Government
• Communications » Mass Media

Reviews:

• This book tours the techniques and pitfalls of public opinion polls. The clarity of Gawiser and Witt's writing makes this title very accessible. Highly recommended for public and undergraduate collections in political science, survey research, and journalism.
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  Choice
• Despite journalists' trust in numbers as "solid, reliable, and real," too few understand how the polls that yield those numbers are run or evaluated. In addressing this problem, Gawiser and Witt offer insight after insight into the value, the technique, the pitfalls, and the frequent sins to be found in the polling world. While their text would no doubt help the reader set up a public-opinion survey, that is not its purpose. The book aims to give journalists and students the tools they need to analyze and evaluate polls, and this to report on (or reject) them with greater understanding. Gawiser and Witt have done journalism--and journalism education--a worthy service.
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  Journalism Educator

Table of Contents:

• Foreword by Walter Mears
• Acknowledgments
• The Opinion Triangle
• The Press and Public Opinion: Always Linked
• A Brief History of Polls
• The Emergence of Precision Journalism
• The Polling Environment Today
• The Poll: Who Did?
• The Poll: Who Sponsored It?
• The Poll: Sampling
• The Poll: The Questions
• The Poll: Timing Is Everything
• The Poll: Sampling Error
• The Poll: Other Sources of Error
• Pseudo-Polls and SLOPS
• Reporting Polls: The Basics
• Reporting Polls: Numbers in Context
• Reporting Polls: Political Surveys
• Reporting Polls: Exit Polls and Projections
• The Future
• Appendix A: The World's Shortest Course in Statistics
• Appendix B: Twenty Questions
• Bibliography
• Index