The missing Newspoll?
According to Matt Price today’s anticipated Newspoll was not published because “The results didn’t conform to News Ltd policy … so we’re doing another for publication next week.”
Matt went on to explain, “Whenever Labor’s 2pp goes above 70 percent … we send the pollsters back into safe Liberal seats and RSL clubs for balance.”
And, “I have been silenced by the HR department here at News Ltd … Waiting for riding orders.”
Then, “You haven’t met our HR people … They don’t take kindly to questioning.”
When asked for a straight answer on Newspoll, Matt replied, “I could tell you … but then they’d have to kill me.”
It was nice to see Matt’s humour suck a few in.
More seriously, the editor of the Australian explained:
It’s out next week. There is no conspiracy. We are trying to settle on a fortnightly cycle that doesn’t involve us coming out a day after Galaxy, as we would have had we come out this morning, or a day after Nielson. You may be aware we do not poll Thursday nights because of late night shopping. Neilson and Galaxy do, which we believe adversely affects their results. But it allows them to publish Monday while we publish Tuesday. Since we spend over $1 million a year on political polling I try to move it around so we don’t get scooped by Neilson or Galaxy. This has only become a problem recently because Fairfax is polling more regularly and the tabloids are polling monthly with Galaxy,
Cheers, Chris Mitchell