2023-07-30 07:10:51
He wrote in this space in June 2017, when the PASO for the midterm elections was approaching: “As the pre-electoral process progresses (…), the feverish records of the companies dedicated to consulting public opinion are acquiring more and more leadership. This updates a topic that this ombudsman has touched on in some of his columns: how to give the reader the greatest quantity and quality of information about the how, when, and dimension of each of these queries. This provides those who access the articles provided by this newspaper with greater certainty about the value and credibility of what is offered to them”.
I return to the subject today, with the same warning for the readers of PROFILE: without analyzing the validity of these queries and their results (which in recent years seem to coincide in sometimes gross errors), I want to point out that this medium and the others , both on paper and electronically, on radio and television, on news portals and in journalistic programs, we are obliged to demand clarification in each of the cases. Disseminating the results of a survey without clarifying some of its details reduces its credibility to zero. And, therefore, the credibility of the medium and of the journalists who spread it.
I must negatively criticize the use of a survey published by PROFILE on Sunday the 23rd, although not in the Political section and not linked to pre-election times. It was on pages 50 and 51, Society section, under the title “Violent Times: 40% of the population witnessed fights or attacks on public roads.” The basis for such a statement is an investigation carried out by the consulting firm Voices!/UADE, directed by Constanza Cilley, who is also coordinator of the work. In the article of this newspaper, written by Enrique Garabetyan, what is stated in the title is expanded in detail, including two paintings that illustrate the space. What is questionable is that nothing is said about how, when and in what universe the survey was developed. He said in that text from 2017, dedicated particularly to the heads, editors, writers and columnists of this newspaper: “The tangle of percentages, speculations and interpretations that reach the pages of PROFILE can be better unraveled when concrete data is added: in each case, the size of the survey (how many contacts were registered, in what territorial space), the methodology used for the consultation (face-to-face or telephone interviews, a mixture of both, other variants), the time of the records (between what dates were they opinions taken) and at least the main questions asked to the respondents”.
Just as it is necessary to be meticulous with details, it is also necessary to identify –if possible– for whom each study was carried out. It is not the same to validate data from a survey contracted by a medium not committed to political sectors than to do it with another paid for by parties or coalitions. This is why I must also question part of what was published on Sunday 9 on page 2, Politics, with the title “Bullrich and Larreta, all or nothing: war of spots, surveys and territorial fight.” In the text, signed by Ezequiel Spillman, it is said that “in the pool of polls -where the numbers are averaged- that the head of the Buenos Aires government treasures (…) a closed election arises throughout the country with a presumed victory in the province from Buenos Aires…”. The note does not explain which surveys it refers to, what its validation data is and what real value is attributed to it.
Times of invasion of new pre-election polls are coming. The journalistic treatment of him deserves, in PROFILE, a strong respect for the good exercise of the profession.
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