Check out the latest NYT/CBS Poll regarding the war in Iraq. Here are two graphics from the CBS website that I thought you might find interesting.
Notice anything weird? Look again. Notice anything funny in the graph in the second image? The size of the bar for 63% compared to the size of the bar for 66%?
Yep- typical for the NY Times, typical for the Dan Rather crowd. When the numbers don’t go your way- just make it look like they are going your way. We know you don’t want this war guys (not that anyone really does), but try to shoot straight with us. Pretty Please?
Lazy, incompetent hacks. They really do think no one is paying attention. And before 9 million people write to say this is not bias, I will agree with you it may not be intentional bias- but it is most certainly misleading and biased- and why does it never happen in the other direction? How many coincidences like this do we have to point out before people will finally question whether there may be an agenda?
While you are at it, go check out the NYT Op-Ed about the poll numbers:
While 82 percent of whites said the United States should take military action to oust Mr. Hussein, just 44 percent of blacks said they supported that approach. In addition, 71 percent of whites said they were proud of what the United States was doing in Iraq, compared with 33 percent of blacks.
We were that close to the fabled “World Ending Tomorrow- Minorities and Women Hit Hardest”
*** Update ***
According to Mike at Cold Fury, the website has made the correction, and didn’t bother to tell anyone or explain why it had been wrong in the first place.
CleverNameHere
You wanna know something ever more ridiculous? Compare “Removing Saddam Hussein Worth the Cost” again. Look at Monday – 63%, then look at Thursday-Friday 62%.
Maybe it’s the new math, but I always thought that 63% was GREATER than 62%.
Ranck and File
Also, note that 62% for Thurs.-Fri. is bigger than 63% for 63% for the Monday figure in the second graphic,,,,NYT math!
Ranck and File
Whoops…didn’t see that somebody already pointed that out!
Barney Gumble
I looked at the source code, here is the relevant portion:
REMOVING SADDAM HUSSEIN WORTH THE COST?
Yes:
Monday
img src=”/common/images/blue.gif” width=”64″ height=”10″> 63%
Sunday
img src=”/common/images/blue.gif” width=”132″ height=”10″> 66%
>Saturday
img src=”/common/images/blue.gif” width=”132″ height=”10″> 66%
it looks like someone typed 64 when they should have typed 126. Hardly a conspiracy rising to the level of the Trilateral Commission.
(I had to alter some of the tags to get them to show of legibly–check it out yourself by going to the page then clicking on “View” then “Source”)
John Cole
Good thinking, Barney- It is just the sheer laziness of it that disgusts me- and it is always in a certain polticial direction- go figure.
David Gillies
How the fuck do you mean to type ‘126’ and end up typing ’64’? That’s like meaning to type ‘euhemeristic’ and accidentally typing ‘boustrophedon’.
mike the analyst
Another fact that I thought was VERRRY interesting about this poll is that although “optimism” about the war is declining – support for the war is going up!
BTW, thanks to Tacitus for the link here!
mike the analyst
Actually, a correction. My above statement was based on polls before Monday.
CBS News Poll
Regarding the war with Iraq, which of the following do you think is most likely: a fairly quick and successful effort, or a long and costly involvement?
3/20 – 62% said quick, successful
3/23 – only 53%
However…
Do you approve or disapprove of the United States taking military action against Iraq to try to remove Saddam Hussein from power?
3/20 – 76% said yes
3/23 – 80% said yes.
However these numbers changed on 3/24 – after the lousy day we had in the war on Sunday.
(Numbers courtesy of the Polling Report.)
Bryant
It’s fixed, btw. No correction posted.
CNN does this kind of thing too. See my complaint here, which relates back to an earlier CNN article alteration — that time they bought into the claims that Blix didn’t say anything about drones in his oral report.
Mind you, that “error” was in favor of the right…
(It’s pretty human to notice the things that piss you off and let the rest of it slide. Not consciously, either. It just happens. I don’t get half as torqued at the blowhards in Daily KOS’s comments as I should, for example.)
Anyhow, pardon the brief partisan comment — I think what both the right and the left should be concerned about is the growing tendency to alter Web articles without any acknowledgement. CNN does it all the time. CBS/NYT did it here. You can’t get away with this in print, because the evidence is always there — but you can sure get away with it on the Web, and everyone does, all the time. It’s shockingly common. It benefits both the right and the left.
How do we get them to stop?
John Cole
I don’t know Bryant, but it is annoying and dishonest.
I think most of the bias in the media is a direct result of laziness, sloppiness, and shoddy think- which leads to half-assed work like what I pointed out here. Doctors get sued for malpractice when they behave like this, while this sort of crap almost guarantees you an opinion column at the NY Times.
MommaBear
Do you really think they give a bloody flippin’ finger what the readership thinks; they know what’s best for everyone, and ain’t to proud to lie to achieve what they want.
Mike
In reference to someone mistyping the code, I doubt they’re using a raw-code editor for the NYT website. They’d either have some sort of content-management system or a WYSIWYG editor like Dreamweaver or GoLive, either of which would put in the image size automatically. If somebody’s sitting there pecking out raw code all day, god, do I pity them.
gerald warnock
how can anyone at cbs walk straight…with all that spinning?