Very interesting, Kevin. I read Weintraub's blog entry on the LAT poll as well. Clearly, the guy's a big fan of Arnold's, but still he's able to set it aside for reality's sake. I think what folks are missing about the radically different LAT poll is that the information was gathered since Davis's much ripped UCLA speech, in which he hammered the GOP for trying to steal another election. AT the time, he was shredded by Weintraub, Skelton, Lopez and just about every pundit in California for not apologizing. Back then the PPIC poll had 38 percent of Dems supporting the recall. The new Times poll has only 15 percent of Dems supporting it. What he was trying to do was cememt the Dem base -- which hates Bush -- and it worked. The headline the next day in every story was that Davis accused the GOP of trying to steal another election. California's pundit class -- so absolute in their hatred of Davis -- missed the strategy. I wonder if anyone will revisit it. That is, if these Times numbers aren't "cooked" as JS says.

I didn't read the articles, but isn't the LAT poll of just 800 (instead of a better number like 2000) voters (instead of *likely* voters)?

"I have never seen any organized liberal (or libertarian) bias in the newsroom"

I don't think anyone has ever accused the LAT of being libertarian, which, as we all know, has no relation to "liberal" as currently defined.

I wouldn't doubt that there is in fact an implicit organized liberal bias at the LAT. It's just that it's not considered liberal bias because the observers are liberals and they consider the bias normal. The organized bias is enforced by editors and other reporters forcing people to do what's "normal."

I expected the polls to swing wildly, but didn't expect what the Times found. I'd like to see it replicated by somebody else before accepting it as a real trend. All kinds of things can be built into a poll that skews it, as Weintraub says -- who they poll, how many, what they ask and when, etc. Dan's point, and mine, about bias is that for anyone who knows anything about how newspapers actually work, the least likely possibility is that the pollsters sat down and tried to make (insert name/party/cause) look good or look bad. When someone alleges that, I know immediately they are either clueless about the media or helplessly partisan (well, I guess I need to allow for just dishonest).

I've always thought The Times since time immemorial has been a moderate Republican newspaper editorially. But slant really doesn't matter to me, because people largely just read the papers they most agree with, anyway. I tend to buy the NYTimes, and I'm liberal. It's the only paper I can find that feels unbiased to me, and somehow also its editorial page just happens to agree with me about 90% of the time.

One of the NYTimes' story on the recall Saturday (there is one a day, at least, on Saturday there were two) was by John Broder, and about how Conservatives are split on Arnold. The other story, not front page but on the jump, was on the shift in the Davis camp's to better terms with Cruz, forced by Davis's shakiness. That all seemed very fair.

"It's the only paper I can find that feels unbiased to me, and somehow also its editorial page just happens to agree with me about 90% of the time."

It feels unbiased or it's bias mesh with yours? Wise up, chum. Smug is such an ugly expression.

As for the LATimes poll, somehow I think that the people who actually talk to the Times pollsters tend to be on the less educated, less affluent side. You know, people around with listed phone numbers and time to chat.

I was being ironic, miss.

As I hope you were when you said that people who are less educated and less affluent are the only ones who have time to chat to people.

FYI, I was one of those less educated, less affluent shut-ins polled last year by the LA Times during the 10-year anniversary riot coverage. The caller explained that I was a randomly selected subscriber and we spent the better part of a half-hour talking about the issues.

I'm a college educated, 6-figure kind of guy with a very busy schedule and an unlisted number. Go figure.

Listed, unlisted, doesn't matter. The calls on a big poll such as the LAT Poll are computer generated for randomness, as I understand it. Subscriber status wouldn't matter either unless for some reason they wanted to sample subscribers, which wouldn't be very useful for political coverage. These news department polls have no connection to the calls you get pitching you to to subscribe or answer marketing research questions.

Lonewacko, Dan Weintraub -- who like everyone else in journalism, doesn't need to be told the difference between "liberal" and "libertarian" -- was no doubt referring to his years at the OC Register when he wrote that he saw no signs of libertarian bias in the newsroom. This despite the fact that OCR management regularly used in-house publications and other means to spread libertarian ideas to its employees, including those in the newsroom. At least during the nine years I was on the payroll.

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DATE: 04/28/2004 12:36:52 PM
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