LETTER: Pollsters get it wrong

Each new poll sensation is instantly followed by a week or two of breathless media attention

Picture: Alaister Russell
Picture: Alaister Russell

I refer to Jonny Steinberg’s most recent column (“Devil is in the details in divisive predictions about election,” April 19).

I’ve also been chuckling at the pollsters and their ever-more-sensational predictions. Rather than swinging votes or electioneering, as ever in SA one gets closer to the truth when one follows the money.

Each new poll sensation is instantly followed by a week or two of breathless media attention, garnering the pollster intense media coverage, radio slots, TV interviews and, no doubt, great marketing collateral to tout their services to big corporate and government clients.

It’s exactly as pollsters do in the equally hit-and-miss developed West.

Stuart Meyer

Via BusinessLIVE

JOIN THE DISCUSSION: Send us an email with your comments to letters@businesslive.co.za. Letters of more than 300 words will be edited for length. Anonymous correspondence will not be published. Writers should include a daytime telephone number.

Would you like to comment on this article?
Sign up (it's quick and free) or sign in now.

Comment icon