Letter: BBC's choice of statistics
Your support helps us to tell the story
From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.
At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.
The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.
Your support makes all the difference.Sir: The reason for the BBC's decision to minimise its reporting of opinion polls (17 November) appears to be that they were inaccurate by a few percentage points in the 1992 general election. Yet the BBC news regularly reports, sometimes as its lead story, the unemployment figures, the monthly balance of payments, the Treasury's economic forecasts, crime 'statistics' and hospital waiting list numbers, all of which are markedly less accurate than opinion polls. Earlier this week it even led with the Department for Education's hopelessly misleading truancy figures.
Why pick on the polls? Am I being unduly cynical in noting that the BBC is more fastidious about statistics that occasionally embarrass the Government than statistics that the Government itself issues?
Yours faithfully,
IVOR CREWE
Department of Government
University of Essex
Colchester
19 November
Join our commenting forum
Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies
Comments