Is California Headed in the Right Direction? How the Media is Interpreting Today's Field Poll and How the Numbers Stack Up

[courtesy of California Progress Report]

By Frank D. Russo

The California Field Poll released its latest data on whether California registered voters feel the state is on the "right track" or the "wrong track" and found that we are divided evenly with 42% supporting each of these conclusions. This is a mercurial number, as Mark DiCamillo, director of the Field poll noted. The findings here present a Rorschach test (those old inkblots used by psychiatrists) for interpretation, and a brief review of how the printed media has reported on this reveals that some of the numbers here can be easily misstated or misinterpreted.

The Right Track/Wrong Track Numbers

The first question asked in today's poll is: "Thinking about things here in this state, do you think things in California are generally going in the right direction, or do you feel things are seriously off on the wrong track?"

Today's tie is actually an improvement from the last survey done in August where the numbers were 42%-45% in favor of the wrong track gestalt but within the margin of error of 3.7% of today's poll.

Yet from the headlines of the three articles I have seen in today's papers, you'd think voters were of the opinion that Californians are going to hell in a hand basket. The San Francisco Chronicle headlines Going negative: 42% of state's voters say state headed downward, while the Mercury News has Poll: Californians split on state's direction PESSIMISM ABOUT FUTURE GROWS, and the Sacramento Bee weighs in with Voters grow less cheerful about state's direction Optimism of spring has faded.

Now headlines are usually written by someone other than the writer of the article and there's a bit of truth in all of these. But since many readers of papers do not read the articles but only glance at the headline and this buzz is then picked up by other media, a little more analysis is needed--and the text of the articles also shows differences in interpretation.

This is what Mark DiCamillo said in the release of the poll: