Today the DrudgeReport headlined an AP/Yahoo Poll with the message: Obama 42, McCain 40, a surprising contrast to many of the other media-generated polls showing Obama with leads of 6 to 10 percentage points.
Drudge has to Link to PDF
I was curious why Drudge's link to the AP/Yahoo Poll went to a PDF that needed to be downloaded, and that the download was the actual polling data, but I checked it out anyway. Here's the Poll link.
Sure enough, there on page six of the poll was the 42-40 result, with Obama only up by 2 points among likely voters.
Why Drudge had to Link the PDF
So why didn't Drudge just link to the AP article on the poll as written by AP writers, Alan Fram and Trevor Tompson? See for yourself. Here's a link to the AP story headlined: Poll: Voters Souring on McCain, Obama Stays Steady
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Take a look. Not a word of the narrow 2-point lead by Obama appears in the entire article. Instead, it's filled with items that indicate McCain is losing ground to Obama.
What Else Did Fram/Tompson Miss?
Given that these two managed to write a fairly lengthy article about their own poll but miss the main result of the poll, that is, who's leading and by how much, I thought it might be interesting to see if they ignored any other interesting results.
You be the judge. Is the Associated Press in the tank for Obama?
Some Evidence AP has Tanked Big Time
The PDF compiles eight sequential polls taken over several months and I'm not sure when the previous ones were dated. However the oldest is referred to as Wave 1 and the latest as Wave 8 in the data.
Should Fram/Tompson possibly have mentioned the result on page 8 showing that in the first poll taken (Wave 1) only 18% of the respondents approved of Congress's performance but that by in the latest poll (Wave 8) that number had dropped to a pathetic 11%. Might they have mentioned that the percentage who disapproved had risen from 59% in the first poll taken (Wave 1) to an astounding 73% in the latest poll (Wave 8.) Would it have been useful information to point out that both houses of Congress have been under management by Democrats during that time?
Even More-Damning Evidence
At the top of page 26 of the PDF, respondents who did not identify with either party have been asked during each poll whether they felt they were closer to being Democrat or Republican. In the first poll taken 31% said Democrat and only 26% said Republican. Remember now, these are voters who didn't associate themselves with either party.
In the intervening polls, the numbers stayed about 4 points apart with the poll just before this last one showing 32% Democrat and 28% Republican. And what of the latest poll? Republicans 30%, Democrats 29%, a five-point swing among independents and undecideds in favor of Republicans!
Yet not a mention in the story by Fram/Tompson.
Misleading by Omission
Instead we get this from Fram and Tompson: Less than three weeks from Election Day, Obama has taken a solid lead over McCain in most national and swing-state polls. The AP-Yahoo! News survey underscores the morale problem McCain faces.
Note they refer to Obama's "solid lead" in most polls while ignoring the tenuous lead in their own polling data. Instead they use data from their own poll to "underscore the morale problem McCain faces."
The Long and the Short of it all
Well, I'll tell you what guys. If you were even reasonably objective reporters and gave both sides of the story maybe McCain wouldn't be facing an (apparent) morale problem. What if your headline was instead: Poll: In Spite of Unease, Independents Shifting to Republicans. Or, if you were in the tank for McCain like you are Obama, even this would be possible: Poll: Dissatisfied with Dem Congress, Independents Leaning Republican.
Hey, a couple of stories like that and maybe McCain wouldn't even be facing a morale problem, especially with the supposedly-unbiased AP writers feeding stories to most of the smaller news outlets in the United States, not to mention the rest of the world.
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