Pew Poll on "Trade" Doesn't Pass the Sniff Test

Pew Poll on "Trade" Doesn't Pass the Sniff Test

http://www.commondreams.org/views03/1201-14.htm

by Norman Solomon

 Drawing on poll numbers gathered last year, the influential Pew Research Center for the People and the Press waited until the recent trade summit in Miami to put out a report under headlines that proclaimed "Support for Free Trade" and "Miami Protests Do Not Reflect Popular Views." But a much more fitting headline would have been: "Report Conclusions Do Not Reflect Actual Data."

The first sentence of the Nov. 20 report claimed direct relevance to current disputes over proposals for a Free Trade Area of the Americas: "The anti-globalization protesters who have clogged the streets of Miami voicing opposition to negotiations to create a free trade area in the Western Hemisphere are not speaking for the strong majorities throughout the region who believe trade is both good for their countries and for them personally."

Interesting. But true?

Both of the survey questions cited by the report asked people in 10 nations of the hemisphere about "the growing trade and business ties" between their country and other countries. But the report overlaid the replies about generic commerce onto particular types of trade arrangements -- "free trade" deals such as the proposed FTAA.

After contacting the Pew Research Center about this evident disconnect, I heard back from Bruce Stokes, a columnist for the National Journal and former senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. He's now a Pew Research Center fellow.
...more...

feel shame?

or are they media whores putting out what the GOP wants to hear, who happen be writing Pew Research reports in their off hours?

* Background link: Pew Research Center report
---"Support for Free Trade: Miami Protests Do Not Reflect Popular
Views"
http://people-press.org/commentary/print.php3?AnalysisID=74

* Background link: New analysis of FTAA politics
---"FTAA Ship Runs Aground, But Party Goes On" by Tom
Hayden http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=17284

* Background links: Police actions at Miami protests
---"Miami Crowd Control Would Do Tyrant Proud" by Robyn E.
Blumner http://www.commondreams.org/views03/1130-07.htm
--- "The War on Dissent" by Naomi Klein
http://www.commondreams.org/views03/1125-08.htm
--- "The Miami Model" by Jeremy Scahill
http://www.commondreams.org/views03/1125-13.htm
--- "Militarization in Miami" by Russell Mokhiber and Robert
Weissman http://www.commondreams.org/views03/1126-03.htm

Norman Solomon's weekly syndicated column is archived at
www.fair.org/media-beat

That's helpful.
:-)

There was a thread in GD yesterday linked to an article on a Pew survey that supposedly showed that people who attended church regularly were more likely to vote GOP (67%) than Democratic (33%), with the voting percentages being pretty much reversed for those who seldom or never attend church. Wow, godless Democrats and god-fearing Republicans, right?

BUT when I looked at the graphic and then read the article more carefully, the 67% who voted GOP and were sometimes referred to as attending church "regularly" actually attended church MORE than once a week.

I think most people would be surprised to learn that attending church once a week is not "regular" church attendance! This seems to be a bias intended to favor surveying the more conservative Protestants who have mid-week church services to "prove" that religious people vote Republican, when what it actually indicates is that conservative Christians vote for conservative politicians.

a poll taken in Iraq also.

Though we seem to be the only ones here who care! :shrug: