EnviroKnow

New data shows that support for offshore drilling has reached its lowest level ever in Rasmussen’s latest polling. Here’s how the GOP-friendly pollster** frames the latest data (emphasis mine):

With the deepwater oil leak apparently capped after three months of gushing into the Gulf of Mexico, support for both offshore oil drilling and drilling further out in deepwater remains largely unchanged. Most voters also remain concerned about the potential environmental impact of new drilling.

A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 56% of U.S. Voters now believe offshore oil drilling should be allowed, while 26% oppose it. One-in-five voters (19%) are undecided.

That’s down from 60% last month. Since the oil rig explosion that caused the massive oil leak, support for offshore drilling has ranged from 56% to 64%.

Predictably, Rasmussen leaves most of the useful information out of their analysis. In their polling immediately prior to the rig explosion in the Gulf, 72% of likely voters supported offshore drilling. Even with Rasmussen’s skewed likely voter model, this represents a 16% shift in just 11 weeks.  The current level of support among likely voters, 56%, is the lowest ever recorded by Rasmussen for this question.  Moreover, support among Democrats for offshore drilling has dropped from 54% in early April to just 29% in the latest poll. Support among Republicans remains relatively flat, down just 4%. GOP support for offshore drilling, at 82%, is actually up 8% from its low point in late May.

This chart shows the extent to which Democratic support for offshore drilling has plummeted and Republican support for the controversial practice has remained steady, in the wake of the disaster in the Gulf of Mexico.

As I’ve documented several times in recent months, the modern Republican party does not care at all about the environment. This represents an unprecedented political opportunity for Democrats, who could really put Republicans on the spot by putting forth a common sense energy and climate bill and forcing them to choose between polluting industries and the planet. In an example of profound political malpractice, though, it appears as if Democrats may end up squandering this opportunity.

**Rasmussen’s conservative bias is well documented. See here, here, here, here and here.

Multiple updates below.

Unfortunately, as far as I can tell, the answer is no. On Thursday I documented a blatantly false Bloomberg news story designed to mislead readers about the level of support for President Obama’s temporary moratorium on deepwater drilling. Bloomberg’s poll (PDF), which the story was based on, asked the following (bottom of page five): “Do you think the spill proves off-shore drilling is just too dangerous and should be banned in U.S. waters, or was this a freak accident and offshore drilling can be made safer and should not be banned?” Based on this question, the Bloomberg headline blared: Americans in 73% Majority Oppose Deepwater Drilling Ban. The story begins, “Most Americans oppose President Barack Obama’s ban on deepwater oil drilling in response to BP Plc’s Gulf of Mexico spill…” Bloomberg made the same false claim two days later in a Businessweek story.

Obviously, there is a huge difference between an indefinite ban on all offshore drilling and President Obama’s temporary moratorium on deepwater drilling. Regardless, Bloomberg polled about the former and reported on the latter. And frankly, I use the word ‘reported’ extremely loosely here. What Bloomberg actually did is fabricate public opinion information on a highly contested public policy issue that is currently being considered in some form by all three branches of government. This is important because political actors, both within Congress and the Obama Administration, may look to public opinion polls like this one to determine the proper course of action.

I’m not alone in finding Bloomberg’s reporting on this poll to be highly objectionable. Several thoughtful observers have taken note, criticizing Bloomberg’s coverage on the similar grounds. Kevin Drum of Mother Jones writes, “This is stunningly bad journalism… The Bloomberg results make for an exciting headline, but that’s about it. Correlation with reality is pretty close to zero.” At Media Matters, Eric Boehlert explains, “There’s an apples-and-oranges problem here that Bloomberg News ought to acknowledge and correct.” The Washington Post’s Jon Cohen adds, “The latter question is useful to understanding public attitudes, but it’s not necessarily focused on the ban that’s in place. That question potentially confounds views on the short-term ban, drilling more broadly and the cause of the spill.” And Yves Smith of Naked Capitalism writes, “I could tell from the mere headline that the poll question was inept and/or unduly suggestive.”

Atlantic Monthly has corrected their piece that cited the Bloomberg article, explaining, “This post formerly read that 73 percent of Bloomberg respondents thought the deepwater drilling moratorium was ‘unnecessary.’ This assertion directly reflected Bloomberg’s article about the poll, but has been revised to reflect the polling language.”

Since Thursday, I’ve been in contact with the following reporters, editors and public relations staff at Bloomberg news:

• Kim Chipman — The reporter who wrote the story.
• Al Hunt — Washington Executive Editor.
• Laura Colby — Managing Editor.
• Ronald Henkoff — Editor.
• Eric Pooley — Bloomberg Businessweek Deputy Editor.
• Ty Trippet — Director of Global Public Relations.
• Joe Winski — Managing Editor, Regulations.
• William Hawley — Senior Editor.
• Jon Asmundsson — Senior Editor / Strategies Associate Editor.
• Gail Connor Roche — Senior Editor.

I did not receive a response from Kim Chipman, William Hawley, Jon Asmundsson, Gail Connor Roche, Laura Colby or Ronald Henkoff. I also reached out to three additional individuals on the Bloomberg public relations staff, but did not hear back from any of them. Both Eric Pooley and Joe Winski told me they’d look into the situation and indicated they’d get back to me, but both subsequently failed to provide any additional information.

Joe Winski informed me that Al Hunt supervises Bloomberg’s poll coverage, and that Mr. Hunt wanted me to give him a call to discuss my concerns. After leaving two voicemails for Mr. Hunt without receiving a return call, I finally got through. Mr. Hunt claimed not to know who I was or why I was calling. He told me that he was not the right person to talk to about my concern. He told me to contact him by email, since he was in the middle of a conference call. When I did so, I received the following response from Mr. Hunt:

mr nelson: why don’t you write back a serious response that doesn’t contain such silly assertions as intentionally misleading reporting or sloppy journalism.

I replied with the following:

The facts speak for themselves. The story in question is factually incorrect.

You have a choice to make: you can correct the highly misleading story or instead shift the focus to me.

As an editor with responsibility for ensuring the accuracy of such stories, I assume you’ll choose the former.

Again, the facts clearly speak for themselves.

Will you correct this obviously misreported story?

Here is Mr. Hunt’s full response:

Mr. Nelson: We appreciate your interest in our BP poll and understand that you think the conclusions we reported are wrong. We have reviewed the article in light of your comments and we believe we interpreted the poll data correctly. We encourage you to write a letter to the editor to express your views. Al Hunt, Executive Editor

Mr. Hunt did not respond to my subsequent requests for clarification.

Given Mr. Hunt’s inability to explain how Bloomberg’s reporting meshed with their own polling, I pursued another avenue. J. Ann Selzer, President of Selzer and Company, Inc, the firm that conducted the poll for Bloomberg, responded to my email but refused to answer any specific questions. She mentioned that Bloomberg editors had consulted with her about my line of questioning, and added, “There’s really nothing more to add to the conversation.”

Eric Pooley, Deputy Editor of Bloomberg Businessweek, indicated several times by email that he was looking into this. On Friday he emailed that he would be happy to talk to me about this but didn’t have time at the moment. By Saturday he had changed his tune, emailing:

Josh, sorry to say it but I’m not the right person to talk about this one, since I wasn’t involved in the poll or the story. It makes sense for someone who was involved to explain why they believe they have interpreted the data correctly. There’s a guy named Ty Trippet in Bloomberg PR — I’ll put you in touch with him. I think he can find the right person to walk you through the data.

I asked Mr. Pooley if he was responsible for ensuring the accuracy of Bloomberg Businessweek stories in his capacity as Deputy Editor of that publication, but did not receive a response. He did not respond to several subsequent emails seeking clarification.

After placing several calls and sending multiple emails to the Bloomberg public relations department I received the following response via email from Ty Trippet, Director of Global Public Relations:

We stand by our reporting.

When I pointed out that Eric Pooley had indicated that Mr. Trippet should be able to put me in touch with someone who could walk me through the polling data, he replied:

You have already spoken with Ann Selzer and others, and I have given you our response.

To summarize, I’ve been in contact with 13 Bloomberg employees and have been unable to identify anyone who a) cares that these stories include obviously false information, or b) can provide any sort of justification for the reporting. Both the Director of Global Public Relations and the Washington Executive Editor have indicated that they stand by their reporting.  Anyone at Bloomberg who is able to justify the reporting in these stories, or would like to offer their own take on the veracity of the stories, is encouraged to contact me.

If anyone has suggestions for additional steps I can take in my efforts to get Bloomberg to correct their highly misleading stories, please let me know. In the meantime, I’d suggest to all journalists, bloggers and readers that they view Bloomberg’s reporting with a heavy dose of skepticism.

Update — AutoBlog Green and The Progress Report have picked this up.

Update 2 — Hilariously, a transcript of an Al Hunt interview with Senator Kerry includes the following disclaimer:

This is not a legal transcript. Bloomberg LP cannot guarantee its accuracy.

Perhaps Bloomberg should consider including such a disclaimer on all of their stories.

Update 3 — The New Orleans Times-Picayune published an anti-moratorium editorial on Friday which cites Bloomberg’s false reporting:

In a Bloomberg national poll released last week, 85 percent of Republican respondents, 73 percent of independents and 65 percent of Democrats said they opposed the administration’s drilling ban as well. They felt that the wide-ranging moratorium is punishing an entire industry and region for BP’s catastrophe.

Terri Troncale, Editorial Page Editor at the Times-Picayune, did not respond to multiple emails seeking clarification. The Times-Picayune has also declined to publish my Letter to the Editor explaining their mistake.

Update 4 — Joining the American Petroleum Institute and the Offshore Marine Service Association, Gulf Coast United is at least the third oil industry-affiliated organization to use Bloomberg’s faulty reporting to argue against a temporary moratorium on deepwater drilling. This underscores the seriousness of Bloomberg’s failure to correct their blatantly false reporting.

Update 5 — Media watchdog site Mediabugs contacted Joe Winski about this and received the following response:

“We’ve said all we’re going to say about that.”

Update 6 — Scott Rosenberg at PBS reviewed the situation and explored some possibilities for Bloomberg’s odd behavior:

So why is Bloomberg being so obstinate? Here, it seems to me, are the possible scenarios:

* Bloomberg dislikes the messenger. Unquestionably, Nelson could have pursued his complaint with more diplomatic finesse. One of his blog posts was headlined, “Does Anyone at Bloomberg News Care About Accuracy?” Bloomberg’s defensive response may be explained as a natural human reaction to hostile criticism, but it cannot be excused on those grounds. Editors shouldn’t make decisions about corrections out of pique. Journalists who care about accuracy have a duty to ignore their personal feelings about critics, to peel away the emotion and consider the substance, if any, of the criticism.

* Bloomberg is just really busy and uninterested in worrying about yesterday’s news. Every news organization is strapped these days, and spending a lot of time sifting through “shoulda-coulda’s” from last week’s news budget is generally viewed as a luxury at best. We can empathize with harried newsroom managers, but we can’t give them a pass. Their future depends on readers’ perception that they hold themselves to higher standards than the average person who posts unvetted information online. And on the web there is no such thing as “yesterday’s news.” Yesterday’s error is republished over and over until it is properly corrected.

* Bloomberg really believes there is no problem here. This one is hard for me to believe, given the evidence. But if it’s the case, surely the editors can see the value in actually making their rationale known rather than keeping it to themselves.

All the scenarios point to the same logic: By refusing to give its critic a thorough response, Bloomberg only hurts itself.

Update 7 — Jonah Goldberg is now citing Bloomberg’s factually incorrect reporting to make a convoluted point about President Obama and energy policy.

Update 8 — The Society of Environmental Journalists has now picked this story up.

Multiple updates below, including a correction from Atlantic Monthly.

The beginning of this Bloomberg story is completely false:

Most Americans oppose President Barack Obama’s ban on deepwater oil drilling in response to BP Plc’s Gulf of Mexico spill, even as they hold the company primarily responsible for the incident.

Almost three-fourths, or 73 percent, say a ban is unnecessary, calling the worst oil spill in U.S. history a “freak accident,” according to a Bloomberg National Poll.

Without looking at the poll’s toplines (PDF), you might not realize what is wrong with these two paragraphs. As it turns out, Bloomberg’s poll did not ask about President Obama’s temporary ban on deepwater drilling. Here is the question they actually asked:

As you can see, they asked whether all offshore drilling should be banned in U.S. waters, without specifying a timeframe.  President Obama’s moratorium, on the other hand, applies only to deepwater drilling (deeper than 1,000 feet) and only for six months.

I’ve emailed the Bloomberg reporter who made this mistake, Kim Chipman, and will be updating here if a correction is made.

The Daily Beast and Atlantic Monthly have also picked up Bloomberg’s erroneous reporting on this.   I’ve requested corrections from both of these publications as well. (See update below with Atlantic’s prompt correction.)

ABC released polling yesterday with a similar question (PDF):  “Do you support or oppose the current six-month ban on new offshore oil drilling while authorities investigate the cause of the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico?”  Although ABC also failed to make the distinction between between deepwater drilling and all offshore drilling, they did ask specifically about President Obama’s six month moratorium.  Surprise, surprise, this wording produced a significantly different result:

In the ABC poll, just 39% opposed the moratorium. Loading their poll questions with framing that is likely to produce business-friendly results is bad enough. Completely misreporting the findings of their polls is going too far. Bloomberg should correct their piece immediately and offer an apology to their readers for misleading them.

Update — Kevin Drum had similar thoughts:

This is stunningly bad journalism. Pending a safety review, Obama has put in place a five-month moratorium on deepwater drilling in the outer continental shelf. But the Bloomberg question doesn’t ask about this: it asks if offshore drilling should be flatly “banned in U.S. waters.” These aren’t even remotely the same things, and in no way can you conclude from this question that “most Americans oppose” the moratorium. They might, but an ABC poll that actually asks the question properly tells us that only 39% oppose Obama’s moratorium.

The Bloomberg results make for an exciting headline, but that’s about it. Correlation with reality is pretty close to zero.

Update 2 — At WaPo’s Behind the Numbers blog, Jon Cohen writes:

On Wednesday, one headline screamed “Americans in 73% Majority Oppose Deepwater Drilling Ban.” Another poll showed 56 percent support for the moratorium.

What gives?

The answer is pretty straightforward: the two national polls asked about completely separate things. You decide.

In the new Washington Post-ABC News poll, respondents were asked this: “Do you support or oppose the current six-month ban on new offshore oil drilling while authorities investigate the cause of the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico?” Some 56 percent of those polled said they’re in favor of the temporary suspension. (In the most affected Gulf counties, the results were flipped, with 60 percent opposition.)

The Bloomberg questionnaire phrases it thusly: “Do you think the spill proves off-shore drilling is just too dangerous and should be banned in U.S. waters, or was just a freak accident and offshore drilling can be made safer and should not be banned?” This is the one showing 73 percent on the negative side.

Obviously, I see the first question as a clear read on a current policy choice, and the second as about something else entirely. The latter question is useful to understanding public attitudes, but it’s not necessarily focused on the ban that’s in place. That question potentially confounds views on the short-term ban, drilling more broadly and the cause of the spill.

Update 3 — Kudos to Atlantic Monthly’s Nicole Allan, who has corrected her piece. She notes that Bloomberg’s story about the poll is incorrect:

*This post formerly read that 73 percent of Bloomberg respondents thought the deepwater drilling moratorium was “unnecessary.” This assertion directly reflected Bloomberg’s article about the poll, but has been revised to reflect the polling language.

Update 4 — Eric Boehlert of Media Matters weighs in:

See the problem? The Bloomberg poll asked a very generic question about banning “off-shore drilling,” but then the article makes reference to “Barack Obama’s ban on deepwater oil drilling.” That’s not what the poll question asked, though. Meaning, Obama has in place a specific six-month moratorium on deepwater drilling of 1,000 feet or more in the outer continental shelf. That in no way is reflected in a question that asks whether all “off-shore drilling” should be permanently banned.

Bloomberg’s polling question was about X, and then Bloomberg News announced it was about Y, and attached Obama’s name to it.

There’s an apples-and-oranges problem here that Bloomberg News ought to acknowledge and correct.

Update 5 — Yves Smith at Naked Capitalism adds:

I could tell from the mere headline that the poll question was inept and/or unduly suggestive.

Update 6 — A BusinessWeek (part of Bloomberg) story is now repeating the same false information:

Most Americans oppose President Barack Obama’s ban on deepwater oil drilling in response to the spill, holding the company responsible for the “freak accident,” according to a Bloomberg national poll conducted July 9-12.

Update 7 — Industry groups such as the American Petroleum Institute and the The Offshore Marine Service Association have begun to seize on this false report.

Update 8 — The Oil Drum has now taken note of this.

Update 9 — I’ve received responses from Al Hunt, Executive Editor of Bloomberg Washington and J. Ann Selzer, President of Selzer and Company (the firm responsible for the poll). I’ll be publishing both in a follow-up piece on Monday morning.

Update 10 — AutoBlog has now piled on:

That’s all pretty straightforward, but there’s reason to call attention to Bloomberg’s potentially flawed polling methods on the headline question: “Do you think the spill proves off-shore drilling is just too dangerous and should be banned in U.S. waters, or was this a freak accident and offshore drilling can be made safer and should not be banned?” Twenty-three percent of respondents said that offshore drilling was too dangerous, 73 percent chalked-up the disaster to a freak accident, and four percent weren’t sure. While Bloomberg interpreted this result as saying 73 percent of people don’t approve of Obama’s six-month ban, Grist points out that this isn’t really what the question was about.

Update 11 — I’ve published an extensive follow-up piece here.

The Washington Post published an article on Monday entitled, ‘Historic oil spill fails to produce gains for U.S. environmentalists.’ It was immediately picked up by several liberal bloggers whose opinion I respect, each of whom seemed to take the article’s conclusion at face value. But while the article gets some things right, it also includes several misleading lines of argument in order to bolster its attention-grabbing headline.

I’ll outline a few of those arguments below, and explain exactly why each is so misleading.

Misleading Argument 1: While previous environmental disasters have prompted legislative action, the still-ongoing spill in the Gulf of Mexico has failed to do so.

Here is how the Washington Post article makes this argument:

Traditionally, American environmentalism wins its biggest victories after some important piece of American environment is poisoned, exterminated or set on fire. An oil spill and a burning river in 1969 led to new anti-pollution laws in the 1970s. The Exxon Valdez disaster helped create an Earth Day revival in 1990 and sparked a landmark clean-air law.

But this year, the worst oil spill in U.S. history — and, before that, the worst coal-mining disaster in 40 years — haven’t put the same kind of drive into the debate over climate change and fossil-fuel energy.

The Santa Barbara oil spill took place in January 1969. The Cuyahoga River fire took place in June 1969. Here are the major pieces of legislation that were passed in response, along with the amount of time that lapsed between the environmental disasters and their respective Congressional approval:

• National Environmental Policy Act — December 1969 (six months after the river fire, 11 months after the oil spill)
• Clean Air Act Amendments of 1970 — December 1970 (18 months after the river fire, 23 months after the oil spill)
• Clean Water Act — October 1972 (28 months after the river fire, 33 months after the oil spill)
• Endangered Species Act of 1973 — 1973 (four years after the river fire and oil spill)
• Outer Continental Shelf (Offshore Drilling)  Moratorium — 1981 (12 years after the river fire and the oil spill)

In contrast, it has been less than three months since the current disaster in the Gulf of Mexico began. I agree with Eric Pooley, author of The Climate War, who told Eli Kintisch in an interview on Monday that “it’s too early to tell what the full impact of the BP disaster will be.”

Buried at the bottom of the piece, the Post acknowledges that it may be too early for major impacts to be seen:

At 11 weeks after the spill, some historians say it’s too early to say it won’t alter national environmental politics. Adam Rome, a historian of the U.S. environmental movement at Pennsylvania State University, said that it could take a year for the public to understand what the spill has done to the gulf — and for politicians to understand what the spill has done to the public.

“If we don’t do anything then, then it’s a sign that we’ve entered into some newer, more passive mode of responding to disasters,” Rome said.

Grist’s Jonathan Hiskes followed up with Rome on this.  He added the following:

The Santa Barbara oil spill happened in January 1969. Right away, people were appalled. In Santa Barbara itself, the spill brought together people who had never been allied before — countercultural students and very wealthy Republicans alike were shocked. But still, it took a long time for it to lead to something more than just “we might need more regulation on offshore oil,” and more than just preventing that one specific thing from occurring again.

Misleading Argument 2: Public opinion hasn’t changed in the wake of the spill.

According to the article, “Opinion polls haven’t budged much.”

When it comes to offshore drilling, this is absolutely false:

• A 6/17-6/21 WSJ/NBC poll found that 48% Americans are skeptical of Congressional candidates who support continued offshore drilling off U.S. coasts. Not increased drilling, mind you, continued drilling.
• A 6/8-6/9 Fox News poll found that support for increased offshore drilling had dropped an incredible 26% in just two months.
• Half a dozen polls conducted in May found that support for increased offshore drilling had dropped between nine and seventeen percent.

And when it comes to legislation intended to promote clean energy technologies and reduce greenhouse gas emissions, the public is overwhelmingly in favor:

• A 5/25-6/1 Benenson Strategy Group Poll (PDF) found that 63% of likely voters support clean energy legislation.
• A 6/17-6/21 WSJ/NBC poll found that 63% of Americans support clean energy legislation, ‘even if it means an increase in the cost of energy.’
• A 6/16-6/20 NYT/CBS poll found that nearly 90 percent of Americans believe U.S. energy policy needs either ‘fundamental changes’ or ‘to be completely rebuilt.’

But have numbers on clean energy legislation budged since the spill? According to Pew’s polling, they have. In February, 50% of respondents favored (PDF, page 29) ‘setting limits on carbon dioxide emissions.’ By June this number had jumped to 66% (PDF, page 3).

If the authors of the Washington Post piece have seen polling showing that support for clean energy legislation has remained flat in recent months, they should cite it. Until they do so, their claim that the polling hasn’t budged remains unsubstantiated.

Misleading Argument 3: Gasoline usage increased between 2009 and 2010.

According to the Post story:

“In addition, U.S. government estimates show that public demand for gasoline and electric power is looking stronger now than last year at this time. If these disasters have made individuals start conserving their energy use, “it’s not something that we’ve been able to observe,” said Tancred Lidderdale of the U.S. Energy Information Administration.”

This is obviously due to the improving economic situation. As this EIA chart shows, U.S. liquid fuel consumption was down nearly 800,000 barrels per day in 2009:

Energy use is subject to significant variations caused by a variety of factors, not the least of which is the economy.  Comparing a year in which the economy was mired in a recession to a year in which many economic factors began to improve doesn’t tell us much of anything about the impact of the oil spill.

It looks like the Post had already decided on the story they wanted to write before they bothered to look at the facts.  Could the Senate have acted by now in response to the spill?  Of course, but this doesn’t mean the spill hasn’t already had a profound impact on energy politics.  Judging the political impact of an environmental disaster that is literally still playing out doesn’t make a whole lot of sense in the first place, given the examples I cited above.  If the Post insists on doing so, they should be a bit more careful with the arguments they cobble together to make their case.

Update — Brad Johnson has more on this at The Wonk Room.

Update 2 — More from A. Siegel at Get Energy Smart Now.

Multiple updates below, including CNN’s correction.

There are so many problems with this CNN blog post on public opinion on global warming that I barely know where to start. Broadly speaking, I’m glad CNN is taking on substantive issues like this, but if they don’t have the resources to do so without making basic mistakes, they might as well not bother.

Problem 1: They Cite Old Data

The July 7th piece cites ‘recent polling by Rasmussen Reports’ showing the number of respondents who consider global warming a problem at a low-point, just 54%. But the poll this data comes from was conducted three months ago, in mid April. Plenty of other pollsters, including Rasmussen Reports, have surveyed the same question much more recently. Rasmussen’s late-May survey on the topic, for example, showed a greater level of concern about global warming than the mid-April survey.

This raises two questions:

• Why did CNN use outdated polling data when more recent numbers from the same pollster were readily available?
• Did CNN intentionally cherrypick data showing concern over global warming at a low point in order to produce a more provocative blog post?

Problem 2: They Confuse ‘Likely Voters’ with ‘Americans’

According to the piece, “Recent polling by Rasmussen Reports show that the number of people who believe global warming is a serious problem is on the decline.” This is factually incorrect. The Rasmussen poll they refer to, like all Rasmussen polls, is intended to gauge opinion among ‘likely voters,’ not ‘people.’ Why does this matter? ‘Likely voters’ are not the same as ‘people,’ and if a pollster uses skewed data to determine who likely voters are, their findings will be skewed as well (For Scott Rasmussen’s explanation of what a likely voter is, go here). As Nate Silver has shown, due to several flaws in Rasmussen’s modeling and data collection, the firm’s understanding of likely voters is considerably more friendly to Republicans than that of other pollsters:

As the next point should make clear, relying on a pollster whose results inflate Republican beliefs is especially dangerous on climate change, given the significant partisan gap on the issue.

Problem 3: They Don’t Mention that the Drop in Concern Has Been Entirely Among Republicans

CNN writes, “The telephone survey found that 54 percent of people believe that climate change is a serious problem – that’s down eight percentage points from a year ago.” I looked into the crosstabs (premium account required) of the mid-April 2009 and mid-April 2010 Rasmussen polls on this question to determine who exactly was becoming less concerned about climate change. The line chart below shows the percentage of ‘likely voters’ who consider global warming a ‘very serious’ or ‘somewhat serious’ problem among Democrats, Republicans and all others for April 2009, July 2009, October 2009, January 2010 and April 2010.

As it turns out, the drop in concern about global warming during that one year time period was pretty much entirely among Republicans. The change in support among Democrats and others was barely outside the 3% margin of error. Now, I can understand CNN’s failure to dig into the crosstabs in order to conduct this level of analysis. But on the two points above — citing outdated polling data and misreporting whose opinions were actually polled — this doesn’t reach the bar CNN has set for itself as ‘the most trusted name in news.’ I’ve asked CNN to consider updating their piece to correct these problems. I’ll be sure to update here if they do so.

Update — six 18 24 hours after I emailed them, CNN has not yet corrected the factual mistake in their blog post.

Update 2 — 24 hours later:  A CNN PR staffer apologized for the delay and forwarded my email to someone in the editorial department.  Still no correction.

Update 3 — Phil Han, a digital producer at CNN and the author of the blog post in question, reached out to let me know he’s made my suggested corrections. While he didn’t raise the point about the partisan nature of the shift in public opinion, he did specify that the poll was conducted among ‘likely voters’ way back in April.

Here is the original version of the sentence that has been corrected:

Here is the updated version:

Better late than never. Kudos to CNN for making these updates to their post.