Using NewsHour Extra Feature Stories

Overview: NewsHour Extra features stories can help students identify and interpret key issues in current events. This activity anticipates one class period, but the follow-up essay might be assigned as homework, or in another period.

Warm Up: Use initiating questions to introduce the topic and find out how much your students know.

Main Activity: Have students read NewsHour Extra's feature story and answer the questions on the reading comprehension handout.

Discussion: Use discussion questions to encourage students to think about how the issues outlined in the story affect their lives and express and debate different opinions.

Follow-up: Students can write an 500-word editorial on the topic expressing their views and send it to NewsHour Extra [extra@newshour.org] for possible publication.

Evaluation: Students are graded on their answers to reading comprehension questions and/or their editorial.

Story: Poll Crazy in Campaign Coverage, 10/20/04
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/extra/features/july-dec04/polls_10-20.html

Initiating Questions:

1. If you were to read "President Bush is leading Senator Kerry by 2 points," what do think that would mean?

2. What are polls? How do they work?

3. Who conducts them? Why?

Reading Comprehension Questions: (click here for printout)

1. What was the margin of error in the ABC News poll and why is it important?

Just 25 minutes after the debate on October 13, ABC News declared the face-off a "draw," according to its poll of 566 "registered voters." Forty-two percent said Sen. Kerry won the debate, while 41 percent said President Bush did a better job, according to the poll. The poll had a "margin of error" of 4.5 percent, meaning the results could have been 45.5 for the president and 37 percent for Sen. Kerry or vice versa, a notable difference.

2. What did the University of Missouri's study show about coverage of the Democratic primary?

For instance, during the 2004 Democratic primary, the largest group of news stories covered the competition (68 percent), followed by character (18 percent) and lastly policy (14 percent) of each candidate, according to a recent study by the University of Missouri's Communication Department.

3. According to media experts, what are two reasons news organizations cover polls?

Media experts say covering elections like a competitive sporting event, like a horse race, creates a more exciting and compelling story for the audience.

Issue-based political coverage, such as the policy positions of each candidate, can seem boring, according to Stephen Hess of the Brookings Institution.

"Substance stories are about issues and candidates' qualifications for office. Horse race stories are more fun. Substance stories are more important," Hess wrote.

Journalists also want to report new information. "A poll just out is new; Sen. Kerry's or Mr. Bush's stand on an issue is not new...I think a reason the media over-emphasize polls is that it allows a story to tell something new," Benoit said.

4. When did media organizations start widely using polls?

This trend is nothing new. Polls have been widely used by the media since the 1950s, according to an analysis by the University of Missouri's Communications Department.

5. Name two reputable polling firms.

Gallup and Zogby International

6. Why can polls on the same subject have different results?

Even the most reputable polling firms, such as Gallup and Zogby International, have their own guidelines for selecting a group of people, or sample of the population, to survey. Even polls on the same subject can therefore have very different results.

7. What do you need to know to understand a poll?

Benoit advises: Know the polling sample, keep in mind the margin of error of the poll and the date of the poll since people's opinions can change after the poll. Finally, ask yourself if it is a reputatable and unbiased polling organization, or a political group, that is conducting the poll.

Discussion Activity (more research might be needed):

1. Do you think polls are useful? Why or why not?

2. Do you think Americans know how to read polls? What effect could news about polls have on voter perceptions of the candidates?

3. If you were a newspaper editor, would you report on the polls in your paper? Why or why not?

Write a 500-800 word essay on any of these topics providing clear examples. Send your completed editorial to NewsHour Extra [extra@newshour.org]. Exceptional essays might be published on our Web site.