The Musings Of An Opinionated Sod [Help Me Grow!]

Flawed? Fucking stupid.

It only proves that the media are stupid.

Not one of the major UK newspapers who ran with this story (Daily Mail, Telegraph, Herald, Scotsman) have reported any details about the survey apart from the sample size (3,000) and some didn’t even bother with that.

One of the world’s biggest press agencies, AFP, didn’t even see fit to describe the sample (teenagers). The Daily Mail went as far as to describe the results ans representative of “the population” and the Yahoo! story you linked to describes the sample representative of “Brits”. Even BBC Radio 4 picked up on the survey on the Today programme this morning without questioning it’s validity.

No details seem to be available about the methodology on the web at all (which instantly arouses suspicion). The sample size and composition is very unusual and would not have been recommended by a research agency. Therefore my hunch is that it was an opt-in pop-up survey on their own websites – i.e. not at all representative of even the teenagers it purports to sample.

Can anyone find the press release?

Lee. Who buys this shit anyway? Oh, the great British public.

In that case Lee, this is the most effective campaign on the planet because for what I can only assume as a small outlay – they’ve managed to get in the pages of the World press.

Maybe P&G should hire whoever was behind it for their media planning 🙂

In all seriousness, I appreciate what you’re saying but I don’t think the blame can be layed entirely at the media’s door – unless they completely fabricated this story, which is also possible. Sadly.

I’m guessing that no research agency was involved as I said above. I could go into detail as to how I know that but I’m sure you’d all fall asleep.

The irony is that I know that UKTV has a decent research manager but I doubt he was even consulted by the PR agency or department which created this.

Rob – I gather from one of the reports that UKTV did the survey to raise publicity for Robin Hood. Given that very few of the newspapers chose to mention this fact, I wouldn’t say that it was *that* successful. However, they certainly got plenty of coverage for a tiny outlay if they did this survey online themselves as I suspect.

I blame the media because they didn’t have to run it. You’ll notice that many media outlets chose not to, presumably based on their judgement of the veracity of the findings.

As Nick Davies mentions in todays Guardian (http://tinyurl.com/2vlazp) only a minority of what gets published in newspapers today is produced by journalists. Most of it is PR-generated tosh like this. Nick estimates based on a content analysis study he conducted with Cardiff University’s school of journalism for his new book that 80% of newspaper content is “mainly or partially constructed from second-hand material, provided by news agencies and by the public relations industry”.

I’ll get off my high horse in a minute.

Everything I wanted to say on this has already been said above…

Thats ok. I’ve seen a few jokes about, which always happens. Some are funny in a respectful way, I just felt that one went too far!

and of course, if it’s the media circus. then rob, i’m sorry to say, but you have successfully contributed to it 🙂 well done.

oh, and rob, you’ll be pleased to know that Howard’s citizenship test is a complete fucking failure and Kevin07’s government is reviewing it, looking to phase it out. which means that you may just be allowed back in the country… 😉

@ Rob @ 6.04pm You say “I still don’t think you can totally blame the media for printing this farcical story because someone out there actually conducted the ‘research’.”

My contention is that this was not conducted by a reputable research agency. It was either conducted in house (e.g. a pop up on their own website) or by their pr agency (the unusual sample and sample size are a give away that is is not well with this research). Neither UKTV or their pr agency will have a reputation to defend as a provider of bona fide research.

The real issue here for me is that we have no way of telling if this is “good” research or whether or not is has just been made up. As the Telegraph & Top Gear motoring journo James May wrote recently, he suspects the latter is often the case: http://tinyurl.com/2txr89

As a planner who has to use research daily it is galling that trust in another bit of our toolkit is being systematically eroded by these poxy PR surveys.

Right, I really have to go and lie down now.

You do know that it was a PR-network that REALLY killed John F. Kennedy don’t you Lee?

Lee – I’m sorry about that last comment. That was silly. Now then to answer your question….

I don’t know. I simply don’t know. But I’ve decided to take a leaf out of your book and wait until the Guardian tells me how is really “went down”.

Brief: We need to show that Britons are stupid

Answer: Ask teenagers about people who died years before they were born and have rarely been mentioned in their education.

You can pay me for that comment later Andy.

I really must get back to work, I’m becoming as bad as Robert for procrastinating.

At least thats a real story…

Andy makes a sensible intelligent comment, and tops it off by talking about Jenna Jameson in a string of expletives.

Good to have him back.

People who think Churchill is myth = 750 people out of 3000 people who self-select to answer a survey (and yes it is self-selection – regardless of what the industry would claim).

Even if the survey sample reflected the demography of the UK that would produce probably 1000 respondents born after Churchill died and a majority of them might be argued to have no great interest in and certainly no large education via the national curriculam in history. Being a survey for a TV company, I can imagine it being skewed to a younger 16-49 group and so that effect would be exacerbated further. These people havent heard of Churchill – so whn asked who of these people are mythical, they answer myth to anyone they’ve never heard of. They’re not saying he’s a mythical character.

To people who know who Churchill was, the result is truly a shock – an incomprehensible one, but if you stand back a little, yoiu can rationalise it easily. And Marcus i do mean rationalise – I don’t mean excuse it. It is an indictment of the education system but look around and you see those every minute.

Andy, what is going on – that is a very sensible answer – are you suffering with the same ‘illness’ as Charles over on the IBM post?

I just like to point out that this piece of research turned up in a German newspaper today.

marcus, it was in der bild zeitung! that’s not shocking. or a newspaper, for that matter.

true, opi. even so, it’s hardly shocking that it featured this crap in the headlines. in fact, if the research company is a PR company, then they’re actually doing a good job, because as ‘europe’s biggest selling newspaper’ if it’s featuring this garbage on the cover (or at least on the front page of the site) then they’ve got that corner of the mass hysteria market sorted.

well fucking said marcus. i hate how so many middle class wannabes treat the guardian like its the fucking messiah of journalism because its not.

sure its better than the rest of the shit out there but that doesnt mean its the best, its just the best of a bad lot.

i cant fucking believe were still banging on about some innocuous alleged research when theres countless examples of real shit going down that no one bats a fucking eyelid at, like how government “research” showed it was immigrants who were the ones fucking england up with crime etc.

what a fucking load of wank but no one goes on about that and yet the consequences are a fuck load worse than whether some snotty kid knows who fucking churchill is or not.

if research companies want respect then they should fight for it and not just whine when some chancer gets mass media coverage with total bollocks. and if theyre any good, theyd understand why not knowing who churchill was would be a big thing for british and kraut press.

fuck im making another serious comment, time to put an end to that. back to work.

If it didnt sell they wouldnt do it.

this is boring, i almost miss campbells blog bollocks but ill survive 🙂

Tonight Andy Boucher will be Gloria Gaynor!

and wittier too

are you fucking mad making complimentary comments about campbell like that. take it back immediately. not for my sake, but yours. what the fuck is going on here? im scared marcus, im fucking scared 🙂

Belated harmonious happy birthday with descant choral accompaniment Lauren. But no present. And Marcus – pull yourself together man. Remember the sum is greater than the hole and just because the hole is off on vacation, it doesn’t mean that wailing and fawning will be tolerated.

it better be huge andy, for all the publicity you’re giving it.. 🙂

Ahem. Sorry, I just couldn’t let it lie.

This is the shorthand list that Bob Worcester (founder of MORI) recommends that journalists use to decide whether or not polls are nonsense:

1. When were the fieldwork dates?
2. Was the sample representative and large enough?
3. The more sampling points the better (face to face polls)
4. Make sure of where the sample was taken
5. Is it an internet, face-to-face or a telephone poll?
6. Are the questions unbiased?
7. How are the “Don’t knows” re-allocated? (voting intention)
8. Are differences statistically significant?
9. Look for full question wording, and full answer wording
10.Who paid for the poll?

From a comment on this rant against so-called “voodoo polls”:

http://ukpollingreport.co.uk/blog/archives/1117

Yes, I know this is boring. But sadly it is important.

While you’re at it, what set of rules should the client impose on the research people? All the statistical rules add to the cost of conducting the research and clients have to stop being cheap.