Polling and the Media |
Of Polls, Mountains
U.S. Journalists and Their Use of Election Surveys
THOMAS E. PATTERSON is the Bradlee Professor of Government and the Press at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government.
Address correspondence to the author; e-mail: thomas_patterson{at}harvard.edu.
Polls are a prominent feature of U.S. election news coverage. Although polls are used to explain voter opinion, they are employed mostly to fuel horse-race coverage and to craft images consistent with the candidates’ positions in the race. Moreover, U.S. journalists sometimes misinterpret polls by slighting the possibility that changes in candidate preference are the result of survey error rather than real change. On balance, U.S. journalists’ dependence on polls adversely affects the quality of American election coverage.