N.C. Controversy Reveals Perils of Reporting on Polls

• By Stuart Rothenberg
• Roll Call Contributing Writer
• June 29, 2009, Midnight

One of the growing problems with political reporting is the explosion of polls and the tendency — particularly among local TV reporters and editors, cable TV hosts and bloggers — to report all of them as if they are equally reliable and newsworthy, and to draw dramatic conclusions from small subsamples and from statistically insignificant changes.