Punish CNN for Bogus Poll: Remove Candy Crowley as a Moderator [View all]

[FourScore]

Thu Oct 04, 2012 at 03:05 AM PDT
Punish CNN for Bogus Poll: Remove Candy Crowley as a Moderator

by Seneca Doane

This excellent diary riled me up so much, once I got through reading the report, that I went out and created this Facebook page: "Punish CNN for Distorted Poll; Remove Candy Crowley As Debate Moderator." The thesis is that what CNN has done in seeking out a completely biased poll and then presenting in a way that most people will think that it is representative of the viewing population is so awful, so odious, and so antithetical to fair journalism that the network itself needs to be punished.

How do you punish a network? Well, you can take away one of its honors -- in this case, the honor of having one of its hosts and correspondents moderate a Presidential debate.

Candy Crowley should step down from her post as moderator. If she won't, the Commission should remove her. That's the only way I can think of to make it clear to news organizations that the Older White College-Educated Illiberal Southerners poll, when presented to the public simply as representative of voters who watch the debate, is such an infraction against journalistic principles that it will not be tolerated.

If you agree, please like, share, and comment upon that page. Let's take it viral.

Here's a graphic I made up that sets all of the "zeroed out" categories (except the exclusion of rural voters, for which I didn't have space) next to each other in stark and readily comprehended form. (Free for you to share.)



From my first full entry:

CNN did something absolutely monstrous in covering the public reaction to the Oct. 3 Presidential debate: it polled only white college-educated Southerners over age 49 who self-identified as either "moderate" or "conservative" -- but did not clearly inform the public about its ideologically selective sample. This is the equivalent of polling only Blacks under age 25 from the Northeast and Midwest who had not attended college and self-identified as "liberal" -- and not informing its viewers and readers about the sample composition. The poll showed Romney preferred 67-25 over Obama -- a result that, taken out of context as it was, helped to shape the interpretation of who won the debate.

CNN must now be penalized by losing the honor of having one of its correspondents, Candy Crowley, moderate one of the remaining debates. Otherwise, we as a nation are saying that this is OK.

You need a concrete goal to organize people quickly and well. Refusing to let Candy Crowley further CNN's agenda -- that of "making it a more interesting race" through fraud on the viewing and reading public -- from the moderators chair is concrete. I'll bet that we can boot her out of that position, to be replaced by another female journalist -- and in so doing bring public attention to CNN's heinous action.

Join me, will you?

3:23 AM PT: I realized that I left out some of the most important part: CNN has been representing the "67 to 25" result simply as a poll of a group of voters who watched the debate (to paraphrase), rather than a poll of "a group of white, 50+, college-educated Southern moderates and conservatives who watched the debate." This is most damaging when it comes to headlines. And no, this is not at all accidental.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/10/04/1139750/-Punish-CNN-for-Bogus-Poll-Remove-Candy-Crowley-as-a-Moderator