Salzman: Post's early poll a disservice

Candidates slighted in shallow, nearly meaningless endeavor

Published February 18, 2006 at midnight

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A newspaper should conduct a poll to reflect public opinion, not formulate it. But that's what the The Denver Post did by publishing a front-page poll last week - fully eight months prior to the November election - creating a perception of public opinion that's shallow at best, meaningless at worst, and certainly a disservice to the public and campaigns of all political stripes.

I'm not saying the Post should avoid influencing voter opinion in an election campaign.

It's one thing if a newspaper does this by spotlighting issues, uncovering dirt, and exposing the candidates' strengths and weaknesses.

But it's another matter when the paper runs the results of a popularity contest before the candidates and issues have even been even partially presented to the public - both by the news media and the politicos themselves.

I mean, what's the point?

By publishing the early poll, the Post became a player in the campaign in the most irresponsible way - by giving the substantive issues secondary importance to the horse race.

Among other things, the Post's Feb. 10 poll story framed the November governor's race as a contest between Democrat Bill Ritter and Republican Bob Beauprez, leaving Marc Holtzman's name in the scrap paragraphs toward the end of the article.

To be fair, the Post did emphasize that the November ballot and candidate races appear "far from settled," with many undecided voters, but this nuance gets buried when the front-page banner reads, "Gay-nuptials foes in lead."

In fact, the Post should have taken a hint and nixed publishing the poll when experts quoted in the Post's own stories said the candidates have so far failed to establish themselves and voters are fairly clueless on the ballot issues.

I don't think journalists fully understand the impact polls splashed on the front pages have on campaigns. They affect staff morale, volunteer recruitment, fundraising, momentum, all aspects of a political campaign.

"We're not even talking to general election voters yet," said Dick Leggitt, Holtzman's campaign manager, adding that his campaign's current focus is getting the support of Republicans who will attend the March 21 caucuses.

"What happens is, the Post publishes this poll, then, obviously, people across the state who we're trying to sign up for the caucus get nervous and we have to divert resources to make The Denver Post feel good," said Leggitt.

That's too bad, isn't it? Next time, the Post should refrain from conducting such an early poll, and, in general, news outlets should cut back on expensive polling and do what they are best at: focusing on the issues people care about.

Ritter deserves better. Sen. Ken Salazar's endorsement of gubernatorial candidate Bill Ritter was more newsworthy than Mayor John Hickenlooper's re-announcement that he was not running for governor - a strange drama that was way overplayed in the news.

Yet, after featuring Hickenlooper's story on the front page Feb. 7, the News didn't bother to run a word about Salazar's endorsement of Ritter on Page 1 the next day. The Post put this on Page 1, where it belonged.

Book bait. David Horowitz, a notorious conservative, thinks Ward Churchill is the 101st most "dangerous" academic in the country. And he wrote this bombshell in his new book - which he is no doubt promoting to reporters in every city where the 101 dangerous professors reside.

Clearly experiencing withdrawal symptoms over the absence of Churchill news lately, the Denver dailies took the bait and ran articles Feb. 13 about Horowitz's un-newsworthy book, omitting the fact that Horowitz stated about a year ago that Churchill should not be fired from the University of Colorado for his "little Eichmanns" essay.

Journalists are us. The debate in the dailies about whether the injury in Iraq of ABC News anchor Bob Woodruff and an ABC photographer deserved media coverage hasn't included this perspective:

Journalists in Iraq represent us, arguably even more so than our soldiers, whose first allegiance is to the military.

So injured reporters, whether they're celebrities like Woodruff or your average Joe journalist who's in Iraq after covering the battle at the state legislature, are definitely newsworthy.

Stories about injured reporters should address why coverage about journalists is important. This could be accomplished by interviewing experts on the role of journalism in politics.

Sick journalists. And what about sick journalists, like the News' Penny Parker, who has breast cancer? Did her bad news deserve a Feb. 7 headline on the paper's front page?

I think she's doing the right thing by using her column to spread the word about breast cancer and mammograms. It can't be easy to write about.

But Penny, don't overdo it like late News columnist Gene Amole did, though he seemed to have some awareness of this when he wrote that the magazine Martha Stewart Living "is certainly more interesting than Gene Amole Dying."

Fortunately, Parker's prognosis is good.

Jason Salzman, president of Cause Communications and board chairman of Rocky Mountain Media Watch, is the author of Making the News: A Guide for Activists and Nonprofits. Reach him at salzmanj@RockyMountainNews.com.

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