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Four takes on a poll: a case study in the use of voice

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How you express yourself has implications for how users react.

In yesterday’s Argo webinar on voice, opinion and objectivity, we discussed several blog posts, asking two main questions:

  1. Where does the post fall on a scale from “straight” (written in a non-controversial, just-the-facts style) to “assertive” (clearly making or assuming an argument)?
  2. What effects might that choice have on users’ reactions to the post?

We kicked off the discussion by examining four approaches to the same story.

On Tuesday, Bloomberg released the results of a poll of likely voters in this November’s midterm elections. Posts about polls are almost perfect for our purposes, because it’s possible to read so much into them. There’s no “objective” reading of a poll – there are the banner top-line findings, then all sorts of murky findings that are subject to vastly varying interpretations. Any of the findings you choose to emphasize can reveal your particular biases, preferences, and interests. Here are four different treatments, along with my analysis of their effects:

1. Just the facts.

How they played it: The write-up of the poll from Time Magazine’s The Page plays this story almost as straight as you can, emphasizing the top-line findings, then just excerpting some select results. Their lede:

Bloomberg survey shows likely voters split down the middle 47-48 on president’s approval rating, while 64% say nation is on the wrong track.

Conducted Oct. 7-10, error margin 3.7 points.

How users might react: I don’t think many users would have too many objections to this treatment. It’s not hugely informative, but it gets across the banner facts without much bluster. Overall, we agreed that this would be a fine quick treatment of the information.

2. The partisan slam.

How they played it: Popular conservative website Hot Air doesn’t pull any punches. The first sentence of Ed Morrissey’s post reads: “Disillusionment has set into the one-time supporters of Hopenchange, according to a new Bloomberg poll of likely midterm voters.” Readers of partisan blogs would recognize “Hopenchange” as a sharply sarcastic nickname for the President, setting the tone for the post’s gleefully pessimistic readings of the poll’s portents for the Democrats. It ends with a prediction that “Obama seems destined to tread the same path as Jimmy Carter by the time Iowa holds its binding caucus in January 2012.”

How users might react: As you might expect from the setup, the comments are not friendly to the Democrats. Although the interpretation of the poll itself is perfectly legit, the aim of this post isn’t journalistic – it’s not about fostering greater understanding or advancing a dialogue – it’s about serving red meat to true believers. We agreed that this undermines whatever journalism the post might include.

3. The snark attack.

How they played it: Mother Jones is widely considered to be liberal, although that hasn’t kept them from doing significant, quality journalism that levels criticism at politicians on all sides. The magazine’s most popular blogger is the liberal Kevin Drum, whose take on this poll is more snarky than partisan (although it tilts that way as well). The tone is set in the headline – “Meaningless polls, part 897.” Like Ed Morrissey’s post, Drum’s point is quite valid – the framing of one of the pollster’s questions probably a did a lot to influence respondents’ opinions. But he couches this point in a thick serving of sarcasm and bluster – “Are they seriously trying to tell us that 87% of likely voters have heard of the Pledge to America? Please.” There’s a partisan element at play too – Drum’s selectively chosen to go after a poll finding that suggests popular support for Republican policies.

How users might react: Much like the Hot Air post, this one’s not going to bring about any advancements in understanding or comity. The snark transforms this from a fair point into another partisan attempt to score points. Reframe the title (maybe “Problematic Polls, Part 897″?), dial down the snideness, and this would have been better.

4. The deep analysis.

How they played it: The Atlantic’s Marc Ambinder comes through with a nuanced, analytical take on the poll (the approach is signaled in the headline – “A dozen ways of looking at an election”). He’s not drawing any easy conclusions or having partisan fun. Instead, Ambinder’s complex assessment invites users to genuinely grapple with the findings of the poll and what they suggest about the mood of the electorate. Even his lede offers more context than any of the other responses, giving us more detail about the pollster and her track record:

When Ann Selzer, who presciently called Barack Obama’s victory in Iowa, does a poll of likely voters for Bloomberg, I’m going to read it as closely as I can. And boy, her results paint a Jackson Pollock picture of the electorate.

How users might react: This post offers food for thought for users on all sides of the political spectrum, as well as more genuine insight than any of the other takes. As one user says in the comments, “There is a lot to chew over here, to be certain. For both parties.” If you have the time and perspective to deliver an approach like this, our group would heartily endorse it.

Conclusions

I’m going to reiterate something Ezra Klein blogged a few months back:

My grand theory of the media right now is that the rise of online media made newsgathering an extremely crowded and quick marketplace. That’s left a lot of publications that either aren’t used to the competition (think newspapers) or aren’t suited to the pace (think newsweeklies) a bit confused about their identity.

Some of them have responded by embracing opinion. That’s also a bad move. The opinion marketplace is, if anything, more crowded than the news marketplace, and it’s hard to really break through in it unless you’re willing to travel pretty far along the partisan continuum. But because news stories move so much faster and opinion is so much louder, there’s actually more demand for media that explains what those fast-moving stories are actually about. This is a need that is going largely unmet. Both the Economist and NPR are imperfect products, but that’s fundamentally what they’re doing. It’s not quite newsgathering, and it’s not straight opinion, though there’s occasionally opinion in there. It’s analysis. It’s how to understand the stuff that other people are reporting and opining.

Again, I quibble with some of Ezra’s characterization here, but I agree that there’s a line between writing couched as unadorned information and writing that loudly asserts. Cogent, interesting, analytical writing such as Marc Ambinder’s post sits in a sweet spot on that line. I should add that when you don’t have time to immediately deliver an analysis as complex as Marc’s, you might start out with a quick post that plays it straight, and follow up with something more analytical. The two aren’t mutually exclusive.

All that said, there are some times when assertive writing is journalistically appropriate; one of those will be the subject of the next post.


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