NP: Foo Fighters, In Your Honor

Last week, Wonkette found this wonderful little CNN poll. The scary part is that I see enough bad survey questions that it's hard to tell if this is a mistake, or if someone actually thought they'd be able to get information out of it.

Next up, last week's much ballyhooed survey of who the American people think is a journalist. The talking point is that cable news Bill O'Reilly outrated Watergate-busting Bob Woodward, but the methodology is clearly just brand recognition:

Poll respondents were asked about 10 writers, TV news anchors and broadcast personalities. They were simply asked, "Please tell me if you think (the individual named) is a journalist or not?" The question made no specific reference to differences between reporters and commentators.

This is not an indication of how the traditional media is being supplanted. This is poor study design.

Finally, I'm inherently suspicious of research papers that don't get submitted to academic journals for publishing, particularly when they're trying to refute studies that damage a political position. It's like movies that don't have screenings for critics before they're released. The fact that the paper goes so far as to insult previous analyses of the data is pretty astounding, showing just how insidious this left-right battle has become.

That the NYT's "article tools" are sponsored by the movie Kinsey is just great unintentional comedy.