The other day I talked to The Journalists’s Resource about how journalists should cover opinion polls. Subsequently, the journalist wrote a great article with a list of things to avoid as a journalist when covering opinion polls – and what to do (it is a constructive piece of journalism). You can read the article here. […]
Tag: opinion polls
Keynote on opinion polls
I recently gave a keynote speech at the conference Sondagens: da Conceção ao Impacto. Luckily, I could give the talk in English (and not Portuguese). Alas, it had to be online. The title of my talk was ‘Opinion polls are bad and we need more of them’. As the English translation of the conference title […]
New book: Reporting Public Opinion
I am happy to announce the publication of a new book, ‘Reporting Public Opinion: How the Media Turns Boring Polls into Biased News‘, co-authored with Zoltán Fazekas. The book is about how and why opinion polls are more likely to be about change in the news reporting. Specifically, journalists are more likely to pick opinion […]
New article in The International Journal of Press/Politics: Transforming Stability into Change
In the new issue of The International Journal of Press/Politics, you will find an article written by Zoltán Fazekas and yours truly. The article is called ‘Transforming Stability into Change: How the Media Select and Report Opinion Polls’. Here is the abstract: Although political polls show stability over short periods of time, most media coverage […]
Eurobarometer and Euroscepticism
Are low response rates resulting in biased estimates of public support towards the EU in Eurobarometer? That is the argument presented in this story in the Danish newspaper Information. As the journalist behind the story writes on Twitter: “EU’s official public opinion survey – Eurobarometer – systematically overestimates public support for the EU”. As I […]
Podcast on opinion polls
I had the great pleasure of talking to my good friend and colleague, Jack Bridgewater, about opinion polls on the podcast How to Win Arguments with Numbers. The other guests on the podcast this season are Matthew Goodwin, Ruth Dassonneville, Shane Singh, Amanda Bittner, Robert S. Erikson and Joshua Townsley. You will not learn a […]
House effects in Danish opinion polls
While opinion polls are great they are also subject to a multitude of potential systematic errors. Some of these errors are related to the fact that polling firms rely on specific methods that might shape the results (so-called ‘house effects’). Some firms, for example, rely on internet panels when they recruit respondents, whereas other firms […]