The New York Times has added an editor’s note to an article featuring a Wedgewood poll that reads: “This page previously included surveys from Wedgewood Polls. On Oct. 20, after being questioned by the polling site FiftyPlusOne, Wedgewood released a statement admitting it had fabricated data for its polls. All of Wedgewood’s polls have been removed from our poll tracking project.”
Earlier this month, MS NOW featured a Wedgewood Poll showing Jocelyn Benson (D) with a 10-point lead over Trump-backed John James ® in the Michigan gubernatorial race.
In addition to The Times and MS NOW, scores of media outlets and prominent poll aggregators cited Wedgewood polling data, including; Newsweek, Decision Desk HQ, and Mediaite.
“Sparking a conversation” is a funny way of saying “provide an instruction manual to bad actors.”
It’s like releasing an unpatched security exploit to “Spark a conversation.”
It doesn’t stop being an exploit just because it’s unreported. People need to be aware.
It’s not a new idea. There have been a huge uptick of conservative polling outlets providing questionable or garbage polling data.
This has the same ring as “don’t talk about drugs or sex, and especially don’t educate kids about them, it’ll give people ideas”. No, people will get ideas regardless. What this firm did is try to educate people about a problem.
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