The Opinion Makers
An Insider Exposes the Truth Behind the Polls
$31.39
- Paperback
216 pages
- Release Date
1 September 2018
Summary
With a new afterword by the authorDrawing on over a decade’s experience at the Gallup Poll and a distinguished academic career in survey research, David W. Moore-praised as a “scholarly crusader” by the New York Times-reveals that pollsters don’t report public opinion, they manufacture it. In this highly critical book, he describes the questionable tactics pollsters use to create poll-driven news stories-including force-feeding respondents, slanting the wording of questions, and ignoring public ignorance on even the most arcane issues. More than proof that the numbers do lie, The Opinion Makers clearly and convincingly spells out how urgent it is that we make polls deliver on their promise to monitor, not manipulate, the pulse of democracy.
Book Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780807042335 |
|---|---|
| ISBN-10: | 0807042331 |
| Author: | David W. Moore |
| Publisher: | Beacon Press |
| Imprint: | Beacon Press |
| Format: | Paperback |
| Number of Pages: | 216 |
| Release Date: | 1 September 2018 |
| Weight: | 259g |
| Dimensions: | 13mm x 140mm x 216mm |
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Critics Review
You will never regard political polls the same after reading David W. Moore’s devastating inside account of their severe limitations and misapplications. This book should be required reading for journalists, political junkies, students, scholars, and citizens. —Robert W. McChesney, author of The Political Economy of Media
“In this succinct and damning critique of the pitfalls of public opinion reporting, Moore, former senior editor of the Gallup Poll, argues that today’s polls report the whims rather than the will of the people. … Keen and witty throughout.“—Publishers Weekly
“A powerful argument that polls do not merely misinform us but pose a genuine, if subtle, threat to our democracy.“—Mark Crispin Miller
”The Opinion Makers is the most important book about the making of polls and public opinion that I have read. The account of how news stories drive polls should make us stop and ask whether the close relationship between the newsroom and polling operations is perhaps a bit too close. A must read.“—W. Lance Bennett, director, Center for Communication and Civic Engagement, University of Washington, Seattle
David W. Moore
David W. Moore is a senior fellow of the Carsey Institute at the University of New Hampshire. A former senior editor of the Gallup Poll, where he worked for thirteen years, Moore also served as professor of political science at UNH and is the founder and former director of the UNH Survey Center. The author of two previous books, How to Steal an Election and The Superpollsters, Moore has also written for the New York Times, The Nation, and the Boston Globe. He lives in Durham, New Hampshire.
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