CRAPPY POLLS 101

Take a look at two of the ways that Fox News wrote its recent poll to get the results that it wanted (link via No Left Turns). Consider the following questions:

19. Generally speaking, do you think news reports about U.S. military operations in Iraq have been:
SCALE: 1. More likely to focus on the negative things happening in Iraq and leave out the positive things, or 2. More likely to focus on the positive things happening in Iraq and leave out the negative things? 3. (Neither) 4. (Depends) 5. (Not sure)

20. On the situation in Iraq today, where do you think most of the problems are being created?
1. In Iraq
2. In Washington, DC, or
3. In the news media
4. (Combination)
5. (All)
6. (None)
7. (Not sure)

Now consider two rules of polling:

1) people are likely to pick the first response, i.e., put "more likely to focus on the positive things" first in question 19 and you'll get more answers along those lines (and the folks at Fox know this, which is why they rotate answers to the candidate questions)

and 2) people are also likely to be influenced by the context of a particular question (here, question 20 is preceded by a question on the news media, so one can expect some people to be prompted by question 19).

Poll consumers, beware!