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2003 NFPW Conference

Gallup Poll analyst provides tips to journalists

“Polling needs to be good science, using the laws of probability and good art, and the surveying organization needs to ask good questions,” Lydia Saad, senior research analyst for the Gallup organization, said at the NFPW conference workshop entitled “Polling Revealed.”

Saad said, “Journalist need to ask questions before accepting and printing results of polls. They need to ask who, what, when, where and how questions.”

Journalists need to ask:

• What were the questions?
• In what order were they asked?
• How were interviews conducted?
• How many people were interviewed?
• What is the margin of error?
• What was the level of technology used?
• What other polls were conducted?
• Do current results make sense in light of other findings?
• Who is the survey sponsor?
• What were the interviewing dates?
• What was the sample size? (Errors can go way up on subsamples.)
• What was the survey method?
• Do the selected samples represent the population to be studied?
• How were the interviewers trained?

Saad pointed out that emerging technologies, the declining response rate, “do not call” lists, telephone caller ID services, Web-based surveys and the rise of cell phones make it more difficult to get accurate responses. Today, 50 percent of phone households have screening-out-unwanted-calls services, and 75 percent of the population has cell phones. As an analyst, Saad had little respect for self-directed opinion polls and casual response audience polls, such as shopping mall intercepts, mail-in computer polls and focus groups.

In the question-and-answer period following Saad’s presentation, Marsha Shuler, government reporter for The Advocate, the state capital newspaper in Baton Rouge, La., said The Advocate requires publication of the poll’s questions as well as the responses.

For information on polling reliability, Saad suggested journalists review the Web sites of the American Association for Public Opinion Research – AAPOR.org – and the National Council of Public Polls.

– Dee Pavicic