I only have one real criticism of Fox last night and it’s over their constant promotion of their online/text message poll asking, “who won the debate?” Here are the results from the poll with the usual disclaimer:
The poll reflects the opinions of those who choose to participate and may not reflect a scientific sampling of the population.
In other words, this is worthless information that doesn’t deserve to be reported.
At one point during the Hannity and Colmes debate review, Alan Colmes tried to defend Ron Paul’s “blowback” comment using the high number of Paul poll responders as some sort of confirmation that Paul’s views were in the Republican mainstream. Sean Hannity and panelists Michael Steele and Pat Caddell quickly ended that line of reasoning and all three dismissed any result from the viewer poll.
So, in reality, Fox is having viewers participate in a process that the Fox pundits see no value in. Maybe it’s time that media outlets end the use of these types of polls if they’re not going to put the effort in to make them worthwhile.