It doesn’t take much to de-rail a comments thread - ask any accomplished troll. Or Matt Price, who derailed a comments thread on his own blog with this little exchange:
Jay (03 July at 10:12 AM)
The Galaxy poll is all well and good, but what happened to Newspoll?
The results didn’t conform to News Ltd policy, Jay, so we’re doing another for publication next week.
Matt Price
Tue 03 Jul 07 (10:13am)
Nice one Matt. There’s a lesson to us all there.
(Hat tip to adrian).
So what does Price mean by that? Snark or cryptic?
He gets a pretty hard time in those comments about News Ltd editorial policy so sounds like a snark to me.
I mean, a snark at the commenters. Sarcasm.
Definitely snarkin’:
“Whenever Labor’s 2pp goes above 70percent, h3llbee, we send the pollsters back into safe Liberal seats and RSL clubs for balance.”
And there will be a Morgan poll next week as well. Will they coordinate their stories beforehand?
And how brilliantly and gracefully he dealt with the problem!
Heh. I was on the end of it a few weeks ago when I asked him for evidence of something he was saying. Heh. Poor pet.
It was apparently meant as a joke, although Pricey hasn’t actually said so. He seems to think that he’s funny.
Price is hysterical (not). Anyway Mumble tells why Newspoll did not come out today:
im sorry i thought LP was a lefty site
anyway my further 2 cents worth
so why only qld results when sites like news,pollbludger,crikey etc etc etc all expected NEWSPOLL today
it dont add up and added to what i ve heard makes sense
ergo-rodent is in deep shite trying to spin an national emergency -the last thing he wants in the middle of his magic trick is something to take away the audiences attention
From Tim via Poll Bludger.
One of the theories doing the rounds regarding the non-appearance of Newspoll is that there something major happening on Thursday or Friday that will cause a corresponding boost in the rat’s popularity. Seems as plausible as anything else I’ve heard in the absence of an explanation.
BTW, definition of pointless smart arse: Matt Price.
Via Poll Bludger
Explanation from Editor-in-Chief for absence of Newspoll:
It’s out next week. There is no conspiracy. We are trying to settle on a fortnightly cycle that doesn’t involve us coming out a day after Galaxy, as we would have had we come out this morning, or a day after Nielson. You may be aware we do not poll Thursday nights because of late night shopping. Neilson and Galaxy do, which we believe adversely affects their results. But it allows them to publish Monday while we publish Tuesday. Since we spend over $1 million a year on political polling I try to move it around so we don’t get scooped by Neilson or Galaxy. This has only become a problem recently because Fairfax is polling more regularly and the tabloids are polling monthly with Galaxy,
Cheers, Chris Mitchell
Aw! And I thought something exciting was happening!
The conspiracy stuff is mad. As much as you might resent:
1. their undue influence on political debate,
2. being addicted to them, or
3. the fact they only do it to promote their ‘market research’ businesses
these polling companies have nil - no minus nil - reasons to play with polling numbers or schedules for partisan reasons. Their reputation is their only asset, as poor Mr Morgan found out.
Damn, I too was hoping for some grand conspiracy. Matt Price is always a fun read though, manages to give an interesting perspective of the workings of club fed.
Graeme,
I guess it shows a couple of things: no one’s immune to the temptation to snark and missing “obvious” sarcasm, in print, is a failing you’ll find across the political spectrum.
Conveying sarcasm in print is a drag - you have to pretty much lay it on with a trowel. Says some interesting things about the current reputation of the National Rupert that Price’s “obviously absurd” was a lot of other people’s “perfectly plausible”.
Seems Matt’s response to Jay has finally had the desired effect and lifted the tone of the thread:
“As Shelley Gare observed in her book, ‘Triumph of the Airheads’ too many seem to regard punctuation as a quaint fashion, much like wearing hats and gloves.In case some blog writers need reminding,”
.. this is a big punctuation no-no. At last I have the chance to shout it from the rooftops: put the spaces in, peeps.So we can read,happily,without or minds getting bent,like.
And yes, I know it was an accident.
Have I succeed in my cunning derailment plan?
And of course I can’t spell “our” so someone else can run even further with this thread…
David, I refer you to a little Rule I prepared earlier.
To me the whole sorry episode could have been avoided had either Newspoll or News Ltd. done the sane and courteous thing of giving a simple explanation early.
Both are in the business of communicating information to the public allegedly and both failed miserably to do so effectively.
Another troll enters Matt’s thread:
And it is worth a look.
The results didn’t conform to News Limited Policy?
A policy which appears to admit that The Australian newspaper, the publisher of the results, wants to scoop rather than be scooped
So what “scoop” are we looking for Ed?
Hey, I have an idea for next Tuesday’s headline:
THE AUSTRALIAN’S “EXCLUSIVE” ICE CREAM SCOOP! - FROSTY RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN HOWARD AND VOTERS CONTINUES
The idea that you can scoop your opposition when everybody’s running a regular polling cycle is a little absurd isn’t it?
I believe they have a saying in the press biz: “Scoop, or you’re just ice-cream!”
I never said it was a particularly witty saying.
Another trainwreck seems to have occurred at the Bolter’s blog. While the cat’s away etc.