Bloomberg blows Ma Ying-jeou's ratings up like a balloon
Er, "inflates"
A September 8 Bloomberg piece by Tim Culpan and Janet Ong contains a huge "error" which serves Taiwan's current president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九):
Approval RatingBloomberg's number increases Ma's actual rating by almost 45 percent (13 percentage points). As I wrote on August 20 [highlighting added this time around]:
Ma’s approval dropped to a record low of 29 percent after the typhoon claimed so many lives, according to an Aug. 18 survey of 919 adults conducted by the United Daily News. The poll had a margin of error of 3.29 percentage points. About 46 percent of respondents didn’t have confidence in his administration’s relief and rebuilding efforts in the aftermath of the storm.
A survey released by pro-blue, 100% Chinese-funded TVBS says that Taiwan President Ma Ying-jeou's (馬英九) approval rating is now at 16 percent [212 kb Hanzi PDF file] following his inept and deadly response to Typhoon Morakot which began battering Taiwan on August 7, 2009, leaving a village with approximately 500 people buried in a gargantuan mudslide, thousands stranded -- some for over a week -- and tens of thousands inundated by deep flooding.I sent an e-mail with the above information to both Culpan and Ong last night just to be sure that these Taiwan-based reporters hadn't somehow overlooked the huge news about Ma's 16 percent approval rating. Yet approximately 24 hours later, there hasn't been any sort of reply, so I think that it's safe to say at this point that they either published this "error" on purpose or simply don't care about the facts.When TVBS says their own guy is doing this bad, he's doing much worse.(Click to enlarge)
As of 9:50 PM September 9, a figure which was off by almost 45% (and which was already pointed out to the authors) remained in this Bloomberg article.
(Click to enlarge)
When it comes to Ma Ying-jeou, can you believe Bloomberg?
Polygraphics: Taiwan, 台灣, Bloomberg, 彭博新聞社, Tim Culpan, Janet Ong
Cross-posted at It's Not Democracy, It's A Conspiracy!
Labels: Bloomberg, Janet Ong, Taiwan, Tim Culpan, Tim Maddog, 台灣, 彭博新聞社
posted Wednesday, September 09, 2009 @ 10:33 PM by Tim Maddog
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2 Comments:
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Bloomberg has always been blue/red. I remember writing James Peng (a HK-based reporter on Taiwan affairs a few years ago). It was about understating the numbers at a rally / march. I got a reply stating that that's what the police had reported. The trouble for Bloomberg was that the official police report of the numbers completely contradicted what was reported -- even with the police being on the pan-blue side of politics.
Bottom line -- you can't trust Bloomberg for reporting the facts about Taiwan.
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This is nothing out of the ordinary. People focus on the poll numbers that they find attractive. I have seen the UDN numbers quoted in several places.
Even the TT has reported on the UDN numbers. According to the UDN, Ma is now at 34 percent, up from 29 percent last month.
http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/taiwan/archives/2009/09/09/2003453121
So if Bloomberg wants to be closed-minded and only quote the UDN's figures (and we all know how unbiased the UDN is), they are right to say that Ma's lowest approval rating is 29 percent.
Bloomberg's sin is in the choosing of the set of poll numbers that Bloomberg approves of. Taiwan really needs something like a RCP average. If all of Taiwan's polls were averaged together each month, it would probably give us a better idea of where the public stands on most issues than looking at any one poll in particular.
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