I have considered sending this to the CBC, yes
Dear CBC,
Do we really need to hear about how someone is in trouble because the single poll reporting has the votes split 4-3-1? Eight people in a riding of many thousands is not all that meaningful. I’m not a statistician, true, but I am convinced of this fact.
I am pleased to see that the Green party is ahead in one riding — but wait! It’s ahead based on one poll reporting (again): 8-4-3-1. Could you split up “leading” and “leading in any statistically significant fashion”? In the same way, some of the ridings are within 10 votes: if it’s based on one or even two polls this is not so much meaningful. (For one riding, they said “But this is only on 5 [miscalculation, there were 6 votes counted] votes, so maybe we should wait”, but this is only because the person they think will win is behind.
Sincerely,
Me
March 26th, 2007 at 9:04 pm
Consider the alternatives, though! They have to report 44 minutes of news every hour whether there’s 44 minutes worth of news to report or not — no, the CBC doesn’t have commercials so they have to report a whole hour of news in an hour! If they didn’t have polls to report they’d have to go out in the street and look for photogenic people to interview….