Military Times Damages Credibility with Obama "Survey"

Once again, the widely-read Military Times is deliberately attempting to accentuate the perceived rift between the military and the incoming Obama administration by promoting an amateurish, unscientific survey called the "2008 Military Times Poll." Here's the headline for the main article:

2008 Military Times poll: Wary about Obama

Troops cite inexperience, Iraq timetable

Using the same data, they also have an accompanying piece with a similarly divisive lead:

Troops oppose repeal of 'don't ask'

Of course, both articles are full of self-selected, academically useless responses from the Military Times' older, white, subscribing readership. The only question is whether they're doing this deliberately, or whether no one who works at the paper is actually educated enough to know how important the difference is between a scientific survey and a haphazardly conducted poll of subscribers who choose to participate.

Either way, they've completely blown up the idea of journalistic credibility by actively pushing this nonsense. And this is critically important because the Military Times has long been the most respected source of objective information for uniformed service members.

Let's start with the main piece. It begins this way:

When asked how they feel about President-elect Barack Obama as commander in chief, six out of 10 active-duty service members say they are uncertain or pessimistic, according to a Military Times survey.

This is dishonesty right off the bat. By saying "six out of 10 active-duty service members," the Times is implying that they've randomly selected active duty members of the military for the survey -- and that their sample is representative of the entire military. They're implying this because that's how professional, credible polling companies conduct surveys. Unfortunately, the Military Times is either too cheap or too daft to do a poll the right way. So naturally, I looked for an explanation. At the very bottom of the page, I found a link with the fine print:

Although public opinion pollsters use random selection to survey the general public, the Military Times survey is based on responses from those who chose to participate. That means it is impossible to calculate statistical margins of error commonly reported in opinion surveys, because those calculations depend on random sampling techniques.

The voluntary nature of the survey, the dependence on e-mail and the characteristics of Military Times readers could affect the results.

No. Sorry guys. It couldn't just "affect the results." It actually invalidates the entire survey as anything resembling a realistic reflection of attitudes within the military.

Nevertheless, the Times spends the next 11 paragraphs highlighting the dissension and distrust within the ranks toward Obama--through commentary like this:

"Being that the Marine Corps can be sent anywhere in the world with the snap of his fingers, nobody has confidence in this guy as commander in chief," said one lance corporal who asked not to be identified.

For eight years, members of the U.S. military have served under a Republican commander in chief who reflected their generally conservative views and led them to war in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Now, the troops face change not only at the very top of the chain of command, as Obama nears his Jan. 20 inauguration, but perhaps in mission, policy and values.

Underlying much of the uncertainty is Obama's stated 16-month timetable for pulling combat troops out of Iraq, as well as his calls to end the "don't ask, don't tell" policy to allow gays to serve openly in the military, according to survey responses and interviews.

"How are you going to safely pull combat troops out of Iraq?" said Air Force 1st Lt. Rachel Kleinpeter, an intelligence officer with the 100th Operations Support Squadron at RAF Mildenhall, England. "And if you're pulling out combat troops, who are you leaving to help support what's left? What happens if Iraq falls back into chaos? Are we going to be there in five years doing the same thing over again?"

Oddly enough, after spending nearly half the piece suggesting that the survey is representative of the military as a whole, the Times quietly slips in these two sentences:

The responses are not representative of the opinions of the military as a whole. The survey group overall under-represents minorities, women and junior enlisted service members, and over-represents soldiers.

So they're basically saying, "Pay no attention to our divisive headlines or, in fact, most of our article. Just accept our conclusions as we've framed them, even though we're now telling you that we knowingly under-represented Obama's primary constituency, and that we have no scientific basis for what we're presenting as 'facts.'"

But it doesn't get any better. The second piece using the "data" is just as shoddy in its analysis of troop attitudes toward the Don't Ask, Don't Tell policy. First paragraph:

Most active-duty service members continue to oppose President-elect Barack Obama's campaign pledge to end the "don't ask, don't tell" policy to allow gays to serve openly in the military, a Military Times survey shows.

Again, this is total dishonesty. By saying "most active-duty service members," the Military Times is insulting each individual who's ever worked hard to earn a graduate degree in the field of social sciences. They've provided no empirical evidence to corroborate such a statement. Maybe it's true, maybe it's not. But we have no way of knowing based on the ridiculous data they've provided.

To their credit, in this second piece, the Times does interview two supporters of the DADT policy and two who oppose it. However, the "expert" chosen by the paper to represent the anti-gay viewpoint is none other than Elaine Donnelly, to whom they allocate a full 20 percent of the article. For those who are unfamiliar, Elaine Donnelly is the unbalanced, homophobic, nutjob who reporters and Congressional committees trot out whenever they need a useful bigot to represent the minority of Americans who disapprove of homosexuality. Donnelly doesn't even have any connection with the military other than her vociferous opposition to gays serving in it. She never served in uniform and she has no discernible academic background on the topic (as the other expert for the piece does). As far as I can tell, she attended community college in Livonia, Michigan and then earned some undergrad credits at the University of Detroit. Which makes her as much of an expert on the matter as your average policy analyst from the local Klavern down on County Road 126.

Elaine Donnelly, the founder and president of the Center for Military Readiness, which supports the ban, said the number of discharges under "don't ask, don't tell" could be reduced to near zero if induction forms contained a question about sexual preference.

. . .

Donnelly warned of the consequences in repealing the ban, which she said could include forced cohabitation of heterosexuals and homosexuals in all branches of the military and disciplinary action against those who oppose or protest the integration.

So on top of faulty data, the Times is resorting to the use of a simple extremist to provide perspective on the debate.

The overarching problem with these pieces is that the Military Times has sacrificed journalistic integrity in order to portray itself as the final word -- as the authority -- on the views of America's troops. In reality, however, they were too lazy or too cheap to conduct a real survey. And by not doing so, they've now contributed to the false -- but titillating and dramatic! -- storyline they seem so eager to push.

I don't know if they just think it's what their readers want to hear, or if they think their readers are just too stupid to notice. I would assume, however, that the Military Times realizes that, while most of their subscribers older and white, the majority of their young, under-represented active duty readers likely pick up copies at the AAFES cash register -- and don't receive them via subscriptions. Personally, I used to read the paper version of the Army Times every week. But I've never met anyone with a subscription.

Regardless, by being so careless, they've done a disservice to both the military and its new Commander-in-Chief. If they're going to conduct self-selecting polls like these, they need to quit promoting them as representative of the entire military. Because they're not.

Also available at VetVoice

Comments

[twoton]

Oh, it's going to be a fun four years watching the lefties squirm as the press starts outing the fraud Obama.

You've been been dishing out lies and innuendo for the past 8 years, learn to suck it up lefties!

[blindjester]

Lies and innuendo, you say.

You mean they found WMD in Iraq?
Bush didn't trash habeas corpus or search and seizure laws?
Nobody was tortured?
New Orleans wasn't flooded?
The economy didn't tank?

But those things are only disturbing to "lefties," I guess.

Enjoy the next four years. They definitely won't be like the last eight.

[MAH1952]

Two comments. First, over ten years ago the NYT had a front page article on concerns that were being expressed by military officials that the military was no longer representative on the American people. Ten years later that is even more so, these are people who would gladly stage a coup in order to 'protect' the US from itself. Secondly, and this ties in with the first, the sheer stupidity of these people is exemplified by their adoration of George Bush, a man who has done more to screw the average military man or woman and endanger their life than any president we have ever had. Had these people had any brains they would have turned against GWB long ago. But since they are robots they do what their master tells them.

[Bystander]

I suspect if the survey had been more positive toward Obama, Friedman would have applauded the Military Times.

[blindjester]

I suspect you have no idea what you're talking about.

[Bystander]

Hey, you're the one that admits he's blind.

[hughbetcha]

Friedman is like everyone else who gets a poll with results they don't like - they attack the poll itself. Nothing in this suprises me. It will take years for the military to accept Obama considering the nonsense they have had to put up with from his extreme left-wing base, a base that pretty much hates the use of military force and whose respect for military men and women is at best condescending and at worst contempuous.

[blindjester]

A recent poll of our family pets reveals that you are full of c*r@p.

You can't dispute polls just because you don't like the results.

[MAH1952]

And with good cause. Also, true conservatives like myself are just as suspicious of the private army that Bush/Cheney and the neocons have built up. Remember that pre-communist George Washington warned us about foreign entanglements and until Reagan that was the policy of the Republican Party. Look it up!

[Angelaaaa]

I have seen nothing but a deep and abiding respect for the military men and women, those who hope to achieve decent outcomes for those around them. I have seen no contempt.

I have, and hopefully will continue to see, a hatred for the use of military force and the use of our young as cannon-fodder by old, cynical politicians whose main concern is a poll.

[Clavis]

Until media companies are no longer for-profit corporations, "news" outlets will continue to become more and more efficient propaganda machines for whoever pays them the most money or otherwise enhances shareholder value.

You might as well demand that, for the good of the country, burglars nationwide should start leaving some stuff behind...

[BCubedReg]

Sorry Brandon, but you crossed a bridge too far in the leaping sentence:

"And this is critically important because the Military Times has long been the most respected source of objective information for uniformed service members."

The Military times is not the most respected source of objective information for uniformed service members. It was simply our only source of information many times.

As a 22 year retired Marine... the only information I took at face value out of the military times was the pay tables and promotion lists they published. Other than that, I knew the paper had a serious right wing, conservative, religious taint about it.

The Military Times is just the military's version of the National Enquirer. The best part was the adjudication page which highlighted who got busted for various offenses month to month.

Don't worry about our servicemen and women. They are getting smarter by the day and can see through the bull.

[rich3324]

Once I retired I stopped reading the Army Times.

[24hourrifle]

so now this bs poll was picked up by fox news,the safe haven for conservative nonsense propoganda and all around inaccuracies.and of course if you only heard about this from their report,you would never know that the poll was utter horsesh**.
and ive gotta mention it again...active overseas military donated to the obama campaign nearly SIX TO ONE compared to mccain.as far as im concerned,this tells me far more than any bs poll.

[wolf58]

here is the email address for the military times. Feel free to drop them a line and tell them what you think of thier bogus poll. [e-mail]

[Jezreel]

If the military is supposed to be apolitical, how can the Military Times justify publishing such an obviously politically motivated article?

[LeftRight]

Because the military times is not actually run by the US military.

[carrierobertson]

http://www.pubrecord.org/religion/583-proselytizing-in-the-military-likely-to-continue-under-obama.html

Proselytizing in the Military Likely to Continue Under Obama

Barack Obama's decision to have the evangelical megachurch leader Rick Warren conduct the invocation at next month's presidential inauguration proves that fundamentalist Christians still wield enormous power within the federal government and will likely continue to be a dominating force under an Obama administration.

Nowhere is this more apparent than in the U.S. military where, for the past several years, in apparent violation of the Establishment Clause of the U.S. Constitution, chaplains have openly proselytized to thousands of active-duty soldiers and, in some cases, have tried to convert Iraqis and Afghans to Christianity.

[Jezreel]

Enough already about Rick Warren. Your comment is off topic and irrelevant.

[kimest3e]

Seriously.

[Phylmom]

The unidentified lance corporal is a total idiot, if he exists. Bush is the one who sent our military to Iraq with a snap of his fingers to start an unnecessary and immoral war.

[Kaccey]

This article has been reproduced in many newspapers across the country. I read it while visiting West Lafayette Indiana. I was appalled that the Herald Leader included this propaganda in its daily news selection.

[maxfax]

They're probably playing to their base, the Herald Leader that is.

[MusinandRamblin]

It would have been so easy to salvage some credibility out of the poll responses had they only broken down their reporting by self-described political affiliation. A quick perusal of raw data of active military shows that many "uncertains" and "pessimists" describe themselves as Conservative Republicans. Big surprise. There also was interesting data on job satisfaction and retention which was not reported. However, the response which surprised me most was the overwhelming "yes" for the question concerning the need for automatic screening for post traumatic stress disorder.

[magnolialiberal]

I think that they are just trying to pander to their readership, the paying readership. Times are hard, and they want to shore up their support. So they run this very silly poll and then slip in a few caveats. It sucks as survival journalism. They also probably want to position themselves to have some flexibility, in case Obama does well with military matters.

As for 1st Lt. Rachel Kleinpeter, I think Obama is certainly by this point better briefed than she is, no matter where she is stationed. Lieutenants, thank goodness, do not make policy

One of the interesting things I noted on the "blue" election map was that the areas of Georgia that went for Obama included the Atlanta and Athens areas, not unexpected, but also the Augusta and Columbus areas, where Ft. Gordon and Ft. Benning are located. I think a deeper analysis of voting in and around military bases would be most interesting, and much more accurate than this so-called poll.

[phinney]

Voting in and around bases will not be telling of how the military and families vote. When stationed out of our home state we always voted absentee.

[LeftRight]

But on the other hand when I was in I was always voting locally. Many people that I knew were voting locally, since they lived in the area and wanted to have a say in the local issues that would affect them. Granted, many people in the military do vote absentee, but CERTAINLY not all of them....

[CPO Mack USN]

magnolia,
*no* military member makes foreign policy; we only enforce it.
I served in the theater of operations with Lt Kleinpeter, on 16x7 shifts, for over 6 months, where we lived, breathed, and studied the conflict in an attempt to defeat insurgent elements. She is a bright and informed individual, and no right-wing nut. I would argue that she has a greater grasp of the situation on the ground than Mr Obama and most elected leaders, but that is not the point. The overwhelming feeling from fellow service members is that we want what we've already done not to be invalidated by pulling out before lasting stability is reached. This is independent of consideration of whether we should have gone in the first place.
With a BS in Math, I do have to concur with the theme of the article in that the Army Times conducted a shoddy and virtually meaningless poll. In general, I would urge almost all news outlets to contract polling out to folks like Zogby, et al, who know how to poll. If one surveys the reader editorials in the back of the Army Times or its sister publications you will see lively commentary with similiar sentiments.

[yoshi99]

Lt Kleinpeter must not be all that sharp if she went on record with the media criticizing the incoming CINC -- that would be HER commander in chief. Talk about an astounding loss of situational awareness. I think she just identified herself as someone who doesn't respect the chain of command.