The Opinion Makers: An Insider Exposes the Truth Behind the Polls

by David W. Moore

Book Overview

With a new afterword by the author

Drawing on over a decade's experience at the Gallup Poll and a distinguished academic career in survey research, David W. Moore--praised as a "scholarly crusader" by the New York Times--reveals that pollsters don't report public opinion, they manufacture it. In this highly critical book, he describes the questionable tactics pollsters use to create poll-driven news stories-including force-feeding respondents,...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0807042331
• ISBN13: 9780807042335
• Release Date: September 2009
• Publisher: Beacon Press
• Length: 216 Pages
• Weight: 0.60 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 5.6" x 8.5"

Customer Reviews

The + or - 3% margin of error is just bogus. Read why

This is the third book Moore writes on this subject as he also wrote How to Steal an Election: The Inside Story of How George Bush's Brother and FOX Network Miscalled the 2000 Election and Changed the Cour and The Superpollsters: How They Measure and Manipulate Public Opinion in America. He was a professor in political science and a senior editor at Gallup Poll. Thus, he is a very qualified insider to dissect the flaws of polls. I used to derive much comfort in the very low + or - 3% error margin of polls. But, Moore's book brilliantly illustrates why the error margin is a delusion. This is the case for several critical qualitative reasons. The first one is what he calls "forced choice." Pollsters want to generate definite opinions from the public. But, the public is often ignorant or undecided. Yet, the choice is binomial (yes/no) are you in favor of something or not. As an example, a poll may tell us 62% are in favor of something with 35% against it and only 3% undecided (the few who dare say they did not know anything about the issue). Occasionally, Gallup has redone such polls asking the public first if they knew something about the relevant issue. Using this second method, on the exact same issue they would get this kind of results: in favor (19%), against (25%), and unsure (56%). That's a completely different result then the first poll. The virtual national primaries are an extension of the "forced choice" fallacy. He thinks national polls of Presidential candidates taken a full year before an election are meaningless. Typically, only a small percent of the public express they are unsure because it is not even mentioned as a possible answer. If asked first if they had a defined choice about Presidential candidates, we'd see that the majority of the public one year before an election is undecided. This is how pollsters got surprised and stated that in early 2008 Huckabee in the Republican Party came out of nowhere. That's because unlike what polls were stating the vast majority of voters were undecided and a significant % went to Huckabee. Lack of recency can be another major flaw. Moore refers to the most spectacular failure of political polls when they all predicted the victory of Dewey over Truman in 1948. Moore refers to the other major gaffe when they predicted an Obama victory over Hillary in the 2008 New Hampshire primary. Moore stated that in both cases the pollsters stopped polling too early. In 1948, they stopped polling a full two weeks before the election while Truman was picking rapid momentum among the undecided (that were not well tracked because of the forced choice format). In 2008, they stopped two days before the vote. During those two days, Hillary showed emotions on TV and rose among the women voters. Moore indicated that if not for the lack of recency, the mentioned polls in 1948 and 2008 would have gotten it right. If polls are taken just before an election most people have truly made t

There are no sacred cows in David Moore's new exposé on national media polls

In his new book, `The Opinion Makers', David Moore seeks to answer several questions related to national media polls including: (1) what does it mean when the pollsters present conflicting numbers during election campaigns, and between elections when reporting on attitudes toward proposed or controversial public policies? (2) Are the polls biased? (3) Whose interests do the pollsters serve? (4) Can pollsters' findings be trusted to represent what people are really thinking? Through his significant experience as a managing editor for a prominent national polling organization and his expertise developed by conducting research and teaching in a Political Science department at a major university, the author is uniquely qualified to answer these questions. For two major reasons, Moore advances the explosive accusation that America's democracy is being undermined by the national media polls. First, he believes that the media polls frequently distort or completely mischaracterize public opinion in regard to both voter preferences during election campaigns and respondent attitudes in regard to proposed or existing public policies. Second, the author thinks that media polls manufacture, rather than just report, public consensus on policy issues. He supports these contentions through a myriad of specific examples and illustrations including the use of survey questions that contain (1) prejudicial labeling or wording, (2) forced respondents choices and/or ruling out `no opinion' or `don't know' responses, (3) order in which possible responses are presented, and (4) bias-producing question introductions or question sequencing. Moreover, in order to better understand respondents, Moore favors both assessing the apriori position and/or knowledge of the respondent whose perspective is being sought as well as their strength of conviction relative to that opinion. Finally, he warns that we should be suspect that the poll results have been manipulated anytime findings are presented that indicate less than 20% of the respondents `don't know' or `don't have an opinion'. The author has an engaging writing style which I thoroughly enjoyed. Often writing in the first person, he presents his perspectives in clear, unambiguous terms and then illustrates his concerns with specific examples that are well-documented with appropriate references should anyone wish to query his sources in order to verify accuracy or to obtain contextual details. Instead of just finding fault with offending practices of the national media pollsters, Moore offers constructive suggestions for improving their survey instruments and their procedures for analyzing and reporting the findings from the polls themselves. For example, he does not blame the analysts working at the national media polls for faulty characterizations of polling results; instead he states that the prevailing paradigm of treating all opinions as though they having meaning is responsible. Thus, he states that is t

Insight and Accessibility

Moore has written a terrific book about polling from an insider's perspective. His honesty and insight provide any reader with a window into how polling works and how they can be manipulated to questionable effect. The book is at once a scintillating and also a troubling look into the world of polls and is must-reading for anyone who wants to make sense of the role polls play in our lives from how we vote to how we live.

Interesting Examination of How Pollsters get it So Wrong

For a number of years now I have wondered how polling organizations can get the numbers so spectacularly wrong and still stay in business. The New Hampshire primary is one example where none of the numbers seemed to line up with the actually results of the election. The author, a former professor of political science and a former vice president of one of the nation's largest and most well known polling operations explains, in great detail, the problems with polling as it is done today. In addition, he explains why the media is so cozy with the polling groups and how this tends to cause massive distortion in the numbers. Finally, along the way, the history of "scientific" polling is discussed from it's formation to the current day. The author writes in an easy to understand style that takes a fairly complex issue and digests it into material that any reader will be able to read. Far from dull, the author has a biting edge to his writing and is passionate about the subject. In addition, the author manages to keep the information neutral, so he isn't pointing fingers at any one political side; he manages to have enough on everyone to go around. This should be read by every person who plans to vote and follows the polls. You will never look at the information in the same way again.

A shocking look at how pollsters measure public opinion

In his sharp-tongued and candid report of political polling methods, David Moore gives a stunning analysis of what poll results truly reflect--and it isn't the accurate measure of public opinion suggested by the neatly packaged pie charts and bar graphs we are so accustomed to seeing in the headline news of national television networks, newspapers, and news magazines. Moore places responsibility for the inaccuracy of public opinion polls on the shoulders of the media, whose strategic questioning methods fade away voter apathy and indecision--the "don't know" or "have no opinion" categories--to falsely create politically charged responses. Most frightening is Moore's argument that "public opinion" is made to reflect and justify the current policies of the politically powerful--an apparent contradiction to what polls claim to do, which is hold policy makers accountable for acknowledging popular will. Moore presents his sometimes scathing critique with an authority informed by his former position as the senior editor of the Gallup Poll. His humor adds allure to this fascinating look at the relationship between media conglomerates and the pollsters who serve them. This is an enlightening read for anyone who wants to stay informed--you will never look at polls with a cursory glance or anything less than a discerning eye again.