Most misleading story of the week
October 3rd, 2011 at 1:00 pm by David FarrarGo to 3 News and read this story:
Labour leader Phil Goff will be clinging to the unexpected results of a new poll in which his party has picked up twice as much support as National.
But he is well behind John Key in the preferred prime minister stakes, according to the TVNZ Marae Investigates Digipoll, released today.
Labour’s on 38.4 percent support in the poll, followed by the Maori Party on 22.2 percent, while National’s on just 16.4 percent.
That is in stark contrast to other media polls, which put National above 50 percent support, with Labour rating at 30 percent or less, and the Maori Party on around one percent support.
How did this get past a sub-editor and get published? The 3 News political staff will be or should be embarrassed this story made it onto their website.
UPDATE: 3 News have commented that the story was from their wire service, but they apologise for not checking it.
The wire service is called NZN. I’ve not heard of them before. Are they one of the replacements for NZPA?
Related posts:
- 22% gap
- Clark says believing Fairfax poll like believing in fairies
- Polls and Prediction Markets
- Non story of the week
October 3rd, 2011 at 1:06 pm
wow what a major f$&^ up!
hopefully not some lefty hack with an agenda
Vote:October 3rd, 2011 at 1:09 pm
Yeah that was pretty bad reporting, it took me a while to figure out wtf they were on about.
Just about as bad was the headline “national’s support doubles” or some such bullshit, also courtesy of tv3.
I’d say the whole newsroom was in a hurry to go watch the footy.
Vote:October 3rd, 2011 at 1:20 pm
I was not confused. Marae digital is obviously Maori voters to me.
Vote:October 3rd, 2011 at 1:26 pm
Agree tvb, however you and I are up with the play on these things. Ma and Pa voter swallow propaganda whole like it were lollies.
Vote:October 3rd, 2011 at 1:31 pm
We had a hand signal for this in the infanty, cluster of finngers on one hand held to one side and the middle finger of the other poked in and out of them.
Work out the meaning for yourself.
Vote:October 3rd, 2011 at 1:43 pm
Oh dear me….I used to think that the scathing comments about the uselessness of the “old media” were somewhat overstated…it seems not….
Vote:October 3rd, 2011 at 1:54 pm
Example #3473 of the standard of MSM reporting in NZ
Vote:October 3rd, 2011 at 1:57 pm
The NZ mainstream media: a motley array of of left-wingers, hacks, guns-for-hire, and amauteurish no-hopers.
Vote:October 3rd, 2011 at 2:10 pm
Serves you right for reading /watching anything to do with TV3. They make the state owned broadcaster look competent by comparison.
TV3 are a bunch of sock puppets – right from the very top, down to the ‘journalist’ level.
Vote:October 3rd, 2011 at 2:21 pm
Crikey! Any more reporting like this and the government will be thinking twice before giving CanWest another soft loan.
Vote:October 3rd, 2011 at 2:26 pm
Spot on, mike&mild.
Vote:October 3rd, 2011 at 2:49 pm
Hey there. Got to put our hands up to a genuine mistake there. This was a story from our wire service, and we didn’t do our due diligence in fact checking it.
We absolutley understand the importance of getting this right, and the story has now been corrected. My team have been told to be extra vigilant on poll stories in future and NZN have been informed of the error.
Apologies for anyone who may have been misled by this mistake.
Regards
Chief Editor 3news.co.nz – James Murray
Vote:October 3rd, 2011 at 3:06 pm
So faceplams all round.
Vote:October 3rd, 2011 at 3:42 pm
Thanks for fronting up and explaining James.
Vote:October 3rd, 2011 at 3:44 pm
David Garret 1:43. No they were not exaggerated. They are entrenched in the socialist camp. What serves the cause is ‘news’. What does’nt has to be spun.
cheers
David Prosser
Vote:October 3rd, 2011 at 3:46 pm
It was good of you to front up and explain James.
cheeers
David Prosser
Vote:October 3rd, 2011 at 3:56 pm
Big ups for fronting and taking responsibility James.
Vote:October 3rd, 2011 at 4:02 pm
Not sure what he is getting the big ups for…. the story is stil there and still misleading…. don’t know what changes have supposedly been made to it.
Vote:October 3rd, 2011 at 4:08 pm
Um william, the story now makes it clear, in the heading and article, that it was a poll of Maori voters…
Vote:October 3rd, 2011 at 4:19 pm
TV3 are just following National’s lead re public service cuts. The expectation is that reducing the number of journalists will improve the quality of service. How’s that working?
Vote:October 3rd, 2011 at 4:20 pm
It’s certainly working well from the polling perspective ross…
Vote:October 3rd, 2011 at 4:26 pm
NZN is “New Zealand Newswire” or http://nznewswire.co.nz/ which appears to be a a division of Australian Associated Press.
Vote:October 3rd, 2011 at 5:32 pm
DPF,
Vote:NZN ( New Zealand Newswire) is a new startup owned by AAP that a few NZPA journalists have defected to . It says speed and accuracy is important. it services APN media like NZ Herald, the other new service is FNZN, owned by Fairfax, that other NZPA journos have defected to. .
October 3rd, 2011 at 8:18 pm
“How did this get past a sub-editor and get published? The 3 News political staff will be or should be embarrassed this story made it onto their website.”
A point that mrjamesmurray doesn’t address in his smoke grenade /mea culpa endeavour to suggest that meaningful changes have been made at TV3 News HQ. He doesn’t seem to have addressed the point you’re making which is that this so-called poll result was completely off the planet and yet 3 Spews cougherd it verbatim without anyone having the intelligence to raise the prospect that it was a bit odd.
Here’s a suggestion mrjamesmurray since you’ve chosen to engage. Try reporting some news. No cats stuck up trees. No feel good bullshit. No editorial comment. No sensationalism. Just hard news. No fuckwitted moronic ace cub reporters that talk in txt and can’t even carry off a sentence. “What this means”, “What ‘X’ said”. No gushing. No “live’ reporting that has no relevance to the story or completely fails any temporal relevance in going live.
Vote:October 3rd, 2011 at 11:34 pm
Dave:
The APN service is APNZ. Not NZN. So I guess there are 3 services now.
thedavincimode:
You plea for “serious” news is all good but have a look at the “most popular” stories on the various NZ news sites. The majority of them will be fluff. The public have spoken and they want crap delivered “as it happens”.
Vote: