I’m not saying polls are wrong. I’m just saying the way the news media reports on them isn’t helpful. Polling should be used by organizations internally but not be offered up to public as some sort of measuring stick to go off of.
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Agreed, not that this will be “unpopular” (come on, when are we going to get some real unpopular opinions round here??).
Historically, polls are used as cheap advertising clickbait and as a way to talk up “interactivity” to the editors. At best, they’re a conversation starter for a comment section, but these days that’s invariably an unmoderated toxic cesspit, or simply deserted. The more savvy publications know that all this has become pointless in the era of social media, so they’ve turned it off.
But what they should be doing IMO is to start communities right here, or elsewhere using ActivityPub. With proper moderation, of course, and with engagement from the journalists. That could end up being a success for everyone involved.
That would be really cool. I think we see a bit of that happening with substack.
Edit: I honestly thought it belonged here expecting to get torn to bits. Glad I wasn’t, thought.
