Tuesday, December 19, 2006

The Newsweek Obama-Clinton Story



Or: Are we really ready for blacks or women behind the steering wheel? You know, concern trollery (term due to Phila). You may have read the story. If not, here is the link. Many bloggers have pointed out that the story didn't address Newsweek's own recent poll which showed Hillary Clinton polling ahead of even the sainted McCain, even though it was discreetly linked to. Greg Sargent contacted Newsweek editor Jon Meacham and got this answer for the odd omission:

Now Meacham has responded to all the criticism. In his interview with me, Meacham claimed the numbers weren't included mainly because they were well over a week old, and because horse race numbers this far out are meaningless.

Asked why the numbers weren't included, Meacham said:

"We routinely poll on the horse race numbers. Whether we put them in the magazine varies from week to week. We have tended not to use horse race numbers because we are so far out."

Ok. So polls this early are meaningless but articles which will affect future polls are not? From now on I will keep an eye out to other similar Newsweek stories, checking that all poll numbers a week old or older are ignored.

This is silly. The poll was probably ignored because it didn't go with the storyline of the article.