65% of Americans think news articles rely too heavily on opinion polls

(From May 8th) In a recent opinion poll, 65% percent of Americans think news articles rely on too many opinion polls for their articles.

“Americans are stupid,” Doug WyCliff, an out of work auto mechanic, responded. “Why does it matter what a certain percentage of Americans think?”

48% of Americans agreed with WyCliff’s sentiment, while only 32% disagreed, 15% said some Americans were stupid and others weren’t, 3% found it amusing that WyCliff, an American, was calling himself stupid, and 2% were too stupid to make a decision on this question.

When asked why they think newspaper articles rely on too many opinion polls, 53% said the news writers were lazy, 28% said there was nothing interesting to write about, 14% responded that the newspapers wanted to reveal how stupid Americans were, while 5% refused to answer as not to enable news writers in their addiction to opinion polls.

“We need to realize that we are the cause of these opinion polls,” Beverly Sanders, a homemaker in New Orleans, replied. “We want to have our opinions heard, thus cultivating an entire news culture of opinion polls.”

73% of those polled said they are boycotting opinion polls, while only 22% said they will eagerly continue to be polled.

When the 73% asked what their main motivation for boycotting opinion polls were, 36% said it was a waste of their time, 24% complained that people base their opinions too heavily on what opinion polls say the majority of Americans think, 23% said they wanted to read something more substantive, like approval ratings, and 17% responded, “Oh crap! You tricked me into answering an opinion poll.”