| Sumario: | This article presents the author's opinion on the reporting of public opinion polls during the 1976 U.S. presidential campaign. Numbers in polls were regarded as something awesome, not subject to question by mere word people. All of that has been outgrown now. Reporting of the polls in the 1976 presidential campaign was done for the most part with appropriately informed skepticism. When polls were sponsored by a candidate or his supporters, readers were so informed. When differences between two opposing candidates were within the margin of sampling error, that was usually pointed out. When the timing of a poll was relevant to the story at hand, reporters were quick to notice. In 1968, such caution was the exception, not the rule. It is obvious that reporters and editors have done some homework. And one thing that has enabled them to do that homework is their increasing use of quantitative methods in news gathering. The competitive use of polls under time pressure is a healthy development precisely because it does not permit us to compare notes and reach consensus. Different interpretations are visible in the marketplace and are forced to compete. Moreover, every inference and interpretation is based on a traceable trail of observation and logic. As the proliferation of polls makes the complexities of polling more visible, readers may become less enchanted with polls, and that, too, would be a healthy outcome.
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