if I ask 3 people a question and they all say yes, I could report "100% of respondents agreed" - this would be totally misleading - however there is no system that I know of to sensor this either prior to airing/printing or after the fact in the form of heafty fines and imposing retractions. I think this should be done as a matter of urgency, and can be done fairly and in the interest of the public- basically a watchdog would have as it's mandate to make sure that the media alway provide the appropriate context from statistics - eg in my example there would be an obligation for the media to state "the respondents represents 0.000001% of the population" or something like that. Media self regulation obviously doesn't work.
2006-06-27
21:02:28
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9 answers
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asked by
Anonymous
in
Media & Journalism