Source: BBC Radio 4: More or Less
URL: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006qshd
Date: 30/11/2012
Event: Peter Kellner on polls: "where you've got things that people have not yet fully engaged with, the wording does matter"
Attribution: BBC Radio 4
People:
Tim Harford: This week, Lord Leveson published his report into the culture, practice and ethics of the press, and made recommendations about how it should be regulated in the future. From the benches of the House of Commons to homes across Britain, people have been talking about what the future of the press should be. Should there be statutory regulation or self-regulation? The online polling company YouGov did their own research into what the public thought about this much-debated topic. Laura Gray's been looking at these polls. Laura, hello. What do they conclude?
Laura Gray: Okay, so first let's look at a poll carried out by YouGov and published by the Media Standards Trust, which is an organisation that's been critical of self-regulation in the past. Now this shows that 79% of people think there should be an independent body, established by law, which deals with complaints and decides what sanctions there should be if journalists break agreed codes of conduct.
Tim Harford: 79%. Completely comprehensive.
Laura Gray: But if you look at another poll, again done by YouGov, only this time published by The Sun - and The Sun, of course, will be on the receiving end of any regulation - you'd see that only 24% of people want a regulatory body set up through law by Parliament, with rules agreed by MPs.
Tim Harford: So, essentially, we've got two polls carried out by the same polling company on the same question, and they draw totally different conclusions.
Laura Gray: It's not quite the same question. There are crucial differences. The question for the Media Standards Trust asks people if they want "an independent body, established by law". It also doesn't mention MPs. When the question's asked this way, 79% think statutory regulation is a good idea. But the question for The Sun asks people if they want a regulatory body set up "through law by Parliament, with rules agreed with MPs", with no mention of the word "independent". And, asked this way, only 24% of people want it. But actually, if you look at the result in both polls, the results aren't so dissimilar. People want a new law to force the media to behave better, but they don't want MPs making that law.
Tim Harford: Even though that is, of course, the way that parliamentary democracy actually works. Well, thank you, Laura. We've discovered that the wording of the question is crucially important. And that reminds me of a very famous sketch in the 1980s sitcom Yes, Prime Minister.
Sir Humphrey Appleby [played by Nigel Hawthorne]: Well Bernard, you know what happens. Nice young lady comes up to you - obviously you want to create a good impression. You don't want to look a fool, do you?
Bernard Woolley [played by Derek Fowlds]: No.
Sir Humphrey Appleby: No. So she starts asking you some questions. Mr. Woolley, are you worried about the number of young people without jobs?
Bernard Woolley: Yes.
Sir Humphrey Appleby: Are you worried about the rise in crime among teenagers?
Bernard Woolley: Yes.
Sir Humphrey Appleby: Do you think there's a lack of discipline in our comprehensive schools?
Bernard Woolley: Yes.
Sir Humphrey Appleby: Do you think young people welcome some authority and leadership in their lives?
Bernard Woolley: Yes.
Sir Humphrey Appleby: Do you think they respond to a challenge?
Bernard Woolley: Yes.
Sir Humphrey Appleby: Would you be in favour of reintroducing National Service?
Bernard Woolley: Yes - oh, well I suppose I might...
Sir Humphrey Appleby: Yes or no?
Bernard Woolley: Yes.
Sir Humphrey Appleby: Of course you would, Bernard. After all you've told, you can't say no to that. So, they don't mention the first five questions - they publish the last one.
Tim Harford: The incomparable Sir Humphrey Appleby explaining the facts of statistical life to Bernard Woolley. So, to return to the question of statutory regulation of the press, I summoned Peter Kellner, the President of YouGov, to explain whether he was a tool in the hands of the spin doctors or doing God's work.
Peter Kellner: The fact that our answers appear to depend so much on the precise wording suggests that people have not been following the precise debate about statutory versus non-statutory regulation very closely. When you ask about things that people feel strongly about - I don't know, about Europe, or about capital punishment, or whether they like or dislike David Cameron - it really doesn't matter very much what the wording is. But where you've got things that people have not yet fully engaged with, the wording does matter.
Tim Harford: Now Peter, you're understandably - you're approaching this from the point of view of "How do we find out what people want?" But of course, opinion polls are used to find out what people want, but opinion polls are also used by people to make their case, to say "People support us. People want what we want." Now YouGov has been commissioned by three different bodies with three different axes to grind, and has come up with three different conclusions. Are you worried that you might be being manipulated or being used by newspapers, by campaigning bodies who want to make a particular case?
Peter Kellner: No, I don't think we are. I mean, the first thing is: we, in the end, have a veto over the questions. The questionnaire is a matter of negotiation between us and the client. And we frequently refuse to ask questions that particular clients want us to ask. And occasionally we've turned down the commission altogether, and then seen other pollsters ask questions which we've refused to ask. The problem is that often there is not a simple, obviously neutral, all-embracing way of asking the question. Because the actual debate that's going on is a debate about framing, and if we take Leveson, what you've been seeing is the press - especially the tabloid press - saying "This is about state control of the media, state licensing, something that Britain abolished 300 years ago". That is how they're framing it. And it is not unreasonable to find out what people think, if you frame a question in those terms.
Other people are saying "What we need is absolutely independent, fearless regulation that the newspapers have to abide by and can't get round". So they're framing it that way. So I think it is perfectly reasonable to ask the questions in different ways, because the whole issue of framing the debate is part of what the debate is about. But that's why actually I'm delighted, that we've asked questions for both sides of the argument, because we've put it all up on our site - people can see exactly what we've asked, they can see the bits that The Sun picked and which they didn't pick - and actually, it's not simply a question of whether people have noticed it in The Sun or not, because people do look at what we put on the site, and people then start blogging and tweeting about it. This is a very, very transparent process.
Tim Harford: Peter Kellner of YouGov. You're listening to More or Less on BBC Radio 4, with me, Tim Harford.