Political Polling and the New Media Culture: A Case of More Being Less

Abstract

Changes in journalism—including newsroom cutbacks, an emphasis on repackaging secondhand material, and the demands of 24-hour news—have expanded the reliance on polls as news, including polls of a sort once considered not reliable for publication, and led to a more superficial understanding of the 2004 presidential race. The prolif- eration of outlets offering news, which has resulted in greater competi- tion for audience, has also intensified the motivation of using polls in part for their marketing value rather than purely their probative journal- istic value. The more synthetic style of contemporary journalism has increased the tendency to allow polls to create a context for journalists to explain and organize other news—becoming the lens through which reporters see and order a more interpretative news environment. A greater dependence on horse race tracking polls by the media has rein- forced these tendencies and further thinned the public's understanding toward who won and away from why. Growing audience skepticism and political polarization have created an environment of distrust about the methodology and integrity of polling. All of these factors, in turn, are frustrating the efforts of academic and commercial pollsters to maintain standards and deepen understanding among journalists about public opinion research and how to use it as journalism. The editors and reporters around the table had always appreciated the candor of the man who was running the meeting, one of the paper's assistant manag- ing editors. He did not disappoint them this day. The gathering was a two-day retreat of the political team of the Los Angeles Times, including myself, to plan its coverage for the upcoming presidential election. The year was 1991, which in political time was an epoch ago or maybe two. Like strategic planning meetings held months before a campaign TOM ROSENSTIEL is founder and director of the Project for Excellence in Journalism, a research insti- tute on the news media affiliated with the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. The author would like to acknowledge Scott Keeter of the Pew Research Center and Cliff Zukin of Rutgers University for their help in the preparation of this article, as well as the staff of the Project for Excellence in Journalism for their invaluable help in conducting much of the research that has informed this analysis. Address correspondence to the author; e-mail: tomrosen@journalism.org.