LOS ANGELES (YBH) – The Huffington Post is currently running a story by Sam Stein with the following headline: Poll: Majority Of GOP Believes Obama Sympathizes With Islamic Fundamentalism, Wants Worldwide Islamic Law.
Any person with reading comprehension skills above the sixth grade level would likely interpret the above as: the majority of the GOP BELIEVES that Obama SYMPATHIZES with Islamic fundamentalists AND that HE WANTS worldwide Islamic law.
GOP: Barack, the Sharia man? Hardly.
That is simply not the question that was asked nor what the poll results stated.
The poll in question is from Newsweek. The “majority” of Republicans (remember the Huffington Post did not say “the majority of those responding to a poll by Newsweek”, but simply “majority of GOP”) that the Huffington Post is referring to is actually 314 self-described Republicans. More than 58 million people voted for John McCain in the last election, yet The Huffington Post is asserting that 314 random self-described Republicans are speaking for the entire GOP. Hardly a true analysis of GOP sentiment.
Already, over 2,000 comments have been posted about the article on the Huffington Post. Many feature comments like “They [the GOP] are the cave dwellers,” or “I thought [the GOP] were only ignorant, but I have to add they are bordering on insanity too,” and “The poll also suggests the majority GOP think the earth is square and if you walk long enough you would fall from the corner.” Based on the reporting in the Huffington Post article, it is easy to see why comments like the above are so common.
The actual question asked by Newsweek in the poll was:
“Some people have alleged that Barack Obama sympathizes with the goals of Islamic fundamentalists who want to impose Islamic law around the world. From what you know about Obama, what is your opinion of these allegations? Do you think they are… definitely true, probably true, probably not true, OR definitely not true?”
The question of whether Mr. Obama personally wants to bring Islamic or “sharia” law, as the Huffington Post headline asserts the GOP thinks he does, to the United States is not asked in the poll.
To get a GOP “majority” The Huffington Post lumps together “definitely true” (14%) and “probably true” (38%) respondents to get a majority of 52%, hence the headline of the article. What the Huffington Post doesn’t mention is, that using their method, fully 17% of Democrats and 27% of Independents think the same thing. Nowhere in the article does Mr. Stein point out this fact.
Taken a step further, the poll had a sample size of 958 people. Of those 958, 314 were self-described Republicans, 334 were Democrats, and 310 were Independents. Each of the groups had a margin of error listed between +/-6.5% to +/-6.9%. The overall poll had 1,029 respondents with a margin of error of +/-3.7%. Using the percentages above, and the Huff Po methodology of combining “definitely” and “probably” respondents into one group, out of 958 people 163 Republicans, 56 Democrats, and 83 Independents thought that “Obama sympathizes with the goals of Islamic fundamentalists who want to impose Islamic law around the world.” Only 24 more Republicans (163) than a combined number of Independents and Democrats (139) responded with “definitely” or “probably” to Newsweek’s question. Hardly a gap wide enough for Sam Stein to ignore. Yet, he does so anyway, why?
Is the Huffington Post changing any minds with this type of journalism (are Republicans disavowing Jesus and Sarah Palin because of articles like these?) or are they just harvesting its existing user base for more and more page views and ad revenues?
Misleading headlines and omission of facts makes me think it is the latter. Shame on them. Perhaps the real purpose of such articles on The Huffington Post can be summed up by a comment left by a user named “awiff” a short time ago:
Please, all Democrats, progressives,liberals,leftists, please register and vote.Please register and vote.Please register and vote for the Democratic party, again.America is still in danger of rethug [GOP] racism and religious persecution. It is up to the liberals to protect the meaning of equal rights guaranteed to us in the Constitution.
Heck, the comment count is now over 3,100. That’s 1,000 plus more comments in the hour I’ve been writing and editing this rebuttal piece. Most are in line with those printed above, someone is buying what the Huffington Post is selling.
Hopefully, Americans that consider themselves either Foxinistas or Sons and Daughters of the Mighty Arianna Tribe or just plain old web news browsers continue to take the time to look behind the headlines. It matters.
Related posts:
- No More Comments on The Huffington Post Website For Me
- Huffington Post Plays Up Bush Arrest Hoax
- AOL’s Huffington Post Pickle, How to Handle Arianna’s Cyber-Extremists
John Romano is the publisher and editor of Yes, But However!, a musician, a former political correspondent for BBC Radio London, and a serial web entrepreneur. Follow him on twitter: twitter.com/yesbuthowever or John Romano on Google+John Romano article archive.
