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Tuesday, December 22, 2009

Just Got Polled about Oil Companies - Is There an Obligation to Tell Them The Truth?

I just got off the phone with pollster asking me questions about oil companies in Alaska.  He said he worked for an outfit called PSA Marketing and Research.  All he would tell me was that it was located in the United States.  He did say he was hired to call people in Alaska, so I'm assuming he wasn't in Alaska.  It's not clear to me who was paying for the survey.  An obvious choice was the oil companies.  At one point he asked whether I agreed or disagreed with statements about BP.   These statements were taken right out of their PR book.  "Do you agree that BP provides jobs for generations of Alaskans" for example.  (He asked my birth month saying that would determine which company I'd be asked about.  It would be interesting to know if others really did get other companies or that was a ruse to hide that this was coming from BP.  I know, I'm so suspicious.)

Anyway, I'd assume this was an oil industry survey except for how the surveyor reacted.  Well, he said he didn't know who was paying for it and that the last person he'd talked to had also told him about BP's recent oil spill.  Come to think of it, that's two people in a row who were asked about BP.  In any case, when I mentioned the recent spill, the previous spill, and the possibility of criminal prosecution, he responded, "Gee, that's terrible."  I had to smile and replied, "You're not supposed to say things like that, you're supposed to be neutral."  That's when he told me, well, the last guy said something similar. 

So, whoever is doing this poll, the people they hired, or at least the guy who called me, is not very professional at all. 

I just checked.  There's a PSA Interviewing Denver that's a market research company.

My outlook on polls is that no one is obligated to tell the truth in a poll.  I really don't think the normal ethical standards for truthfulness apply here.  They are taking up my time, making money off the information they get from me, and they won't even tell me who they are or who's paying for the poll.  What obligation is there for me to tell the truth here?  For all I know, they will use my information to figure out how to manipulate public opinion.  I could be wrong here - about the obligation to be honest to pollsters - so if someone thinks I do have such an obligation, let me hear your reasoning.   

2 comments:

  1. Anything that gets your part-time quitter Gov in trouble is the truth.
    You wonder how she got elected and I'm in AZ wondering how McOld gets elected over and over.

    ReplyDelete
  2. You know, I have been known to fib to pollsters. I wonder if that is part of their reasoning when they calculate "margin of error".

    ReplyDelete

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