Yay! The Denver Post is dumping its stupid, manipulative polls from the editorial page.

Editorial Page Editor Chuck Plunkett announced the decision in a column yesterday.

Plunkett: Overall, the problem that I see with the surveys is that the information they allow us to gather is such an untrustworthy representation of reality that any reporter who cited the results as credible in a story would, or at least should, be laughed out of the newsroom.

Any person who read them and decided to change their thinking based on the results would likely be disserved.

When I was on the politics desk, and answered calls about these polls, I couldn’t help but be honest and admit I didn’t think that we should be running them.

Plunkett acknowledged in his column that the polls were offered as click bait, adding a grain of sand to the newspaper’s attempt to shore up its resources. But they run counter to  the truth-seeking mission of The Post.

In the online world, newspapers have the competitive advantage of credibility. (Yes, they still have it!) They can push out light stuff or sports or entertainment or mayhem, but misinformation, which is basically what the online polls are, should be avoided at all costs.

This entry was posted on Friday, October 28th, 2016 at 9:33 am and is filed under Denver Post. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.