Friday, August 15, 2008

CTV.ca : Changing Headlines

I happened to read about a new poll that was released yesterday and did a little Google search trying to find a full story on it. This is what I found.


"Trouble ahead for Harper's Tories, poll suggests" That doesn't sound so good does it? But clicking in the link this is what I find at CTV.

"Tories preferred on leadership and major issues: Poll" A totally changed headline to a story about the exact same poll. Only this one seems to be indicating the complete opposite from the first one, and after reading the story I have to wonder just how the first headline ever made it's way onto the CTV .ca website in the first place.

Here is the story. Please read it for yourself, and see if you can figure out how anyone could conclude that there is trouble ahead for Harper's Tories.

The Canadian Press

OTTAWA -- A new poll suggests Canadians prefer Conservatives over Liberals when it comes to leadership and most major issues -- even though that preference has not translated into popular support for the governing party.

The Canadian Press Harris-Decima survey suggests 43 per cent of Canadians think the Tories, with Stephen Harper at the helm, have the best leader to be prime minister.

Only 22 per cent of those polled picked the Liberals, led by Stephane Dion.

Moreover, the Tories came out well ahead of the Liberals when respondents were asked which party is best equipped to deal with the economy (40 per cent to 22 per cent), taxes (41 per cent to 20 per cent) and crime (39 per cent to 18 per cent).

They also enjoyed a smaller two- to three-point advantage over the Liberals on foreign affairs, energy and health care.

When asked generally which party cares most about the issues closest to respondents' hearts, respondents favoured the Tories 35 per cent to 32.

The survey respondents preferred the Liberals over the Tories on only two issues: the environment (36 per cent to 24) and poverty (32 per cent to 25).

That appears to reflect Dion's summer-long campaign to promote his so-called Green Shift -- a complicated climate-change plan that would impose a carbon tax on fossil fuels, offset by income- and business-tax cuts and tax benefits to the poor, elderly and rural dwellers. The plan includes measures aimed at halving the number of Canadians living in poverty.

Dion has said the green shift will be the centrepiece of the Liberals' platform for the next election campaign. But the poll results suggest he may be in danger of being seen as a one-trick pony.

"I believe that is a definite risk for Dion right now," said a Harris-Decima senior vice-president, Jeff Walker.

Although Liberals tout The Green Shift as an economic plan, as well as a plan for tackling climate change, Walker said it appears to be seen primarily as an environmental initiative thus far and that's "too narrow a definition."

"Especially in this (weakening) economy, people need to know and hear that there's some plan for the economy."

Despite the Conservatives' advantage on the economy and other issues of importance to voters, the most recent Harris-Decima survey suggests the Tories remain mired in a virtual tie with the Liberals, with 32 per cent and 33 per cent support respectively.

Walker said the Tories appear to be held back by their inability to gain support in urban and suburban Ontario and Quebec, where the Liberals seem to be the "default choice" for voters. But that could change during the course of an election campaign, which could come as early as this fall.

Leadership becomes critically important during a campaign and Harper, having led his party through two elections, is far more experienced than Dion, who is preparing for his first campaign as leader.

Moreover, Walker said the preference Canadians are showing for Conservatives on most issues is really a reflection of the greater trust they have in Harper as a leader.

"Right now Conservatives are very solid in a whole bunch of areas and that's almost a surrogate for leadership. That's why it really will come down to the campaign," he said.

The poll suggests only 14 per cent of Canadians think it's time for an election. Thirty-eight per cent think an election this fall would be "a waste of time" but a plurality -- 41 per cent -- said they can live with the prospect.

The telephone phone poll of just more than 1,000 Canadians was conducted Aug. 7-10 and has a margin of error of 3.1 percentage points 19 times in 20.


For your added enjoyment; watch this clip titled http://watch.ctv.ca/news/latest/trouble-ahead/#clip83578 for Craig Oliver's take on this latest poll and whether or not he thinks there is trouble ahead for the Tories.




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10 comments:

Anonymous said...

You should have seen CTV news last night on the Ethics Committee hearings in Ottawa. No mention of the fact that the Conservative proposed witnesses were not allowed. Only of the recent no-shows and behaviour - provoked by what, may we be allowed to know?

Anonymous said...

If I'm not mistaken there have been two polls out this week, one showing the Libs ahead by 1% and the other was dealing with support for individual issues and leadership.

I could be mistaken though and there were just two different interpretations of the same poll.

Anonymous said...

I saw that page before it was changed. Originally the story associated with that headline talked about the Libs being 1% ahead nationally in the newest poll by Decima, even the comments are in regard to that poll.

Later they put up the other poll on leadership in it's place but kept the same headline and continued on with the comments that were already there in regards to the other poll. I'm guessing it was just a screw up.

Anonymous said...

Anon 2:27:10, the MSM are just there for show. the media is tired of not working therefore want the liberals back in office so they, the msm, can take a lengthly vacation. which you and I know very well they have BEEN vacationing for years.
Thank God for the blogs and the transparancy act. we can now go into the liberals' closet to bring to light what the so-call reporters kept as a secret for years starting from P.E.T.

@#$%$% said...

This is what the terrorists do at YouTube: they post videos under one title, which gets sucked into the search engine, then change the title. Example: when you see in the results 'Insurgents wasted compilation' and click on it, the video is actually titled 'IED damages US hummer'. Al Qaeda should have patented the technique, it was a matter of time for the Left to plagiarize it.

Anonymous said...

What CTV meant "TROUBLE AHEAD FOR CTV NEWS MEDIA"

Anonymous said...

They were probably just thinking of In-and-Out when writing the headline the first time :-)

Anonymous said...

Heh heh, typical 'journalism' from the 'Journalwood's tales from the crypt'.

Loved CTV-Montreal a couple of years ago lead the news with the fake email about one of our planets appearing as BIG AS THE MOON!!
So were their eyes when they were blabbing this on the 6:pm news! Did we laugh!
This crap was an email hoax we'd received a year earlier!
We tuned in at 11 to see if they were still stuck on stupid, but nary a word...I've abandoned ALL tv news shows pretty much every since, not to mention finding more serious journalistic ethics thrown under the hate C-Canadians, and R-Americans bus.

I didn't even like Haper initially but BECAUSE the media hated him so much I decided to find out about him; voted for him, and will do so again.

ALL Canadian TV NEWS SHOWS are just that...SHOWS with more info all about the useless plastic hollywood bunch from a bunch of symmetrical make-up faced professional liars (*who really wanted to be the hollywood stars but failed to do so).
Maybe all that face paint makes 'em feel like a bigger person when they lie and sleaze on air or something instead of doing news ethically, eh?

Anonymous said...

FYI: Danny Williams came out tepidly in favour of the Green Shaft last weekend:

http://www.bloggingtories.ca/forums/viewtopic.php?p=42884#42884

It wasn't so much an endorsement of the shaft as it was an attack on Harper but I think he makes it clear where his priorities lie.

Ardvark said...

If as Trevor has pointed out is true and the story under the headline itself was changed, than that makes some sense.

I could not for the life of me figure out just how the (new) story could possibly lead anyone to write the offending headline, and Craig Oliver agrees it would seem.


Cool Blue, I missed that about ol' Danny boy. I wonder how he feels today with the Hebron deal being worth 16 billion over 25 years and Dion's carbon tax SHIFTing out 35 billion over that same time frame.