Has anyone else realized how there are significantly less Gallup Polls used as references for this election? It's because they gave up—as we all should—on polls.
Gallup has gathered that it is next to impossible to make a poll that isn't biased towards someone or an idea. They have significantly cut their use on polls that are directly related to Election 2016 in comparison with past elections. It's been reported that "Gallup won't commit to tracking the general election next year." This is like the Crayola company not doing crayons: the election polls are basically their biggest seller, the thing that brings in the most views and revenue. It is too easy now to use political spin to get any answer out on what you ask. Also, polls are very limited in their sample and you can't get results from 500 people polled on Facebook and expect it to reflect the views of the country. Gallup was quoted as saying “The difficulty in doing this well has caused major players to not participate. That means there’s even less legitimacy because people who know how to do this right aren’t doing it.” That is not a way to truly gauge the political atmosphere of people and their beliefs. Its like asking only third graders what their favorite time in school is. It’s recess, always recess.
Unfortunately, there isn't really a solution to these things, people just want to be told what to think because they are too lazy to look it up for themselves. Its like crack to the news, because it is in fact news and something they have that isn't the recent weather of raining cats and dogs. They use their polls to jump off to new opinions and new polls because they don't feel like doing their job as newscasters. They would rather jump from opinion to opinion instead of looking up the facts and delving deep into bills and or statements made by the politicians. Their gotcha journalism is more about ratings than actual journalism.
This is probably why "Last Week Tonight with John Oliver" is doing so well, especially with millennials. He has the classic Jon Stewart ability of bringing politics to comedy by just saying “duh, how did no one see this." He does his research, a breath of fresh air that is almost not seen by actual news sources, let alone other comedy shows. But that's what people want now. My generation (or at least my friends, and I hope to god the rest of the country) are tired of statements without facts and opinions from everyone from your mom to that kid you used to babysit. I (and many others) don’t care about hearing everyone's opinions on everything all the time. I want cold hard facts on things that are going on in my world. I want unbiased news fact checked to the Nth degree. And yeah I want a few fart jokes mixed in too, because at heart I'm a kid, and I want to be entertained.
