Today, I went to a talk given by Dr. Stuart Soroka entitled, "I know what's going to happen five days from now." Soroka, one of the founding members of the Media Observatory at the McGill Institute for the Study of Canada and his research team investigate how news media affects poll results. He argues that there's about a four to six day lag between when a story breaks in the news and when it shows up in public opinion polls. Based on data from the current election campaign, Soroka's willing to bet that both the Liberals' and Conservatives' polling numbers go up over the weekend. Read More »

Yesterday the Liberal party campaign plane made an unscheduled stop in Montreal. We are told that there was a problem in the Liberal's aging Boeing 737. Thankfully the malfunction was minor and no one was hurt.This should have been the end of it but for the media it was a great stand-in for the entire campaign. Read More »

Many things irritate me about mainstream media, and their inaccurate reporting of public opinion polls is rather close to the top of the list. While this article by the CBC's online team is not bad (http://www.cbc.ca/news/canadavotes/story/2008/09/12/elxn-poll.html), there is crucial information that should be included but isn't. Read More »

I can't help but find the hew and cry about Elizabeth May's exclusion from the leaders' debates amusing. For example, over 1500 comments have been posted on the original story on the CBC website, which is more than I've ever seen on any other story. Read More »