Sunday, January 11, 2009

Another day another Sindo

Ireland's most inaccurate paper, The Sunday Independent, tends to snub its nose at such concepts as evidence and facts.

During the last general election they aggressively supported Bertie Ahern, and called for the various Tribunals investigating criminal behaviour by politicians and others to be shut down.

As recently as July 2007 were claiming that it was the time to buy property. Property has gone down about 20% in real terms since that little nugget of advice.

You get the feeling that they have a Millwall supporters attitude, 'everyone hates us and we don't care', but it appears that increasingly this attitude extends to its own sizable readership.

Yet despite all these readers and associated revenue, it appears that none of their journalists can count.

In today's edition they publish a poll. The presentation and commentary of which is both unbelievable and hilarious.

They report that the Lisbon Treaty will be passed by 55% Yes, 37% No and with 15% undecided.

That a total of 107%!

They also report that the state of the parties is;
Fianna Fail - 28%
Fine Gael - 27%
Labour - 18%
Greens - 2%
Sinn Féin - 2%
PDs - doesn't say
Don't Know - Doesn't say.

This adds up to 77%. They have either failed to re-distribute the don't knows, the PDs have had a phoenix like revival or the polling company simply has no idea what a proper political poll is supposed to look like.

The poll was carried out, allegedly, by a company called Quantum Research International Inc, who goggled leads to these, they appear to be one of those armies for hire. A search of Ireland's registered companies uncovers these guys.

A thread on Politics.ie is quite indicative of the esteem that the Sindo is held in by its peers.

The Sunday Independent isn't subtle with its political agenda and that its prerogative, what is unacceptable for a paper with its resources is amateurish polling and sloppy analysis and then broadcasting that as news.

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