Public opinion 101: What does a poll really say? …

Question: When is a poll not really a poll?

Answer: When its results are virtually meaningless.

That’s probably oversimplifying things. There are lots of other answers, which gives us a chance this morning to go over some things you should know about polls, surveys and scientific validity.

Nearly every day in the online version of the newspaper, ajc.com, we invite readers to weigh in on a story in the news by clicking on an instant poll linked to it.

Often in the print version of the paper we tell you that you can register your …

From my corner, The Chronicle erred on rally coverage…

When my phone rings these days, it’s a good bet I’m about to hear one of two things: The Chronicle’s Mideast coverage is pathetically pro- Palestinian, or The Chronicle’s Mideast coverage is pathetically pro-Israel.

One reader demands to know: “Why do you call Hamas a militant group when President Bush says they are terrorists?” Another reader, equally fervent, can’t abide the fact that we refer to Israeli soldiers as soldiers at the same time as we call rifle-carrying Palestinians “gunmen.”

In the superheated atmosphere of the Mideast crisis, every word, paragraph, graphic and image …

Sin of omission: Star erred on Israel rally story…

Sometimes it’s not what’s in the Star, it’s what’s not there.

Children’s dentist Jeffrey DuBois, D.D.S., watched TV coverage of Monday’s pro-Israel rally in Washington, D.C., but didn’t see a word about it in Tuesday’s Star.

Supporters says 100,000 people attended, and called it the biggest pro-Israel rally ever in Washington, D.C.

The New York Times ran a photo on its front page and a story inside. The Star ran nothing, despite stories from seven different wire sources and 16 available photos.

The story wasn’t included in news or photo summaries that top editors …

Should Beacon name juveniles? Readers divided…

Kids and crime have been in the news a lot lately.

Robert Vandyne, age 16, and Gregory Evans, age 17, last week were charged with beatinga Green High School student until he almost died.

Before that, Deonte Griffin, age 12, and Rayshawn Robinson, age, 14, were charged in the rape of a 14-year-old girl. Aaron Stitt, age 14, was convicted of killing his father.

All of them kids. All of them at a confusing age, full of emotional chaos. All of them in court. All of them named in the Akron Beacon Journal.

And …

Bias is turning out to be the all-purpose charge of dissente…

If I had a quarter for every e-mail I’ve opened that contained a charge of bias in news coverage, I could retire tomorrow a very rich man.

Indeed, I could do so even if I counted only those charging bias in the Tribune’s coverage of the Middle East. I wouldn’t need to get the ones that say the Sports section is always, invariably and without exception biased in favor of Notre Dame.

But lately–and thanks in part, I suspect, to the influence of TV newsman Bernard Goldberg and his book “Bias: A CBS Insider Exposes …

Suburban readers are an important audience …

The city editor barked out an order to an all-but-abandoned newsroom in the middle of lunch hour.

“Get out there right now,” he said, pointing at me. “There’s a bank robbery going down and the cops have the guy surrounded.”

I was a medical reporter in Louisville at the time, but I grabbed a notebook and a pen and headed out with a photographer. The story the next day took up a full page.

It was high drama. A great story, made all the easier to get because the bank was across the street from …

When a secret really isn’t a secret…

Steven Young is the managing editor of Spaceflight Now, a Web site that covers NASA. And when he talks about the agency’s new policy to keep shuttle launch times under wraps, it’s hard to argue with him.

“We feel it should be made clear that NASA is putting up an illusion of security, and that’s a story,” said Young. “We felt this was sort of an emperor-has-no-clothes issue.”

Young is among members of the Cape Canaveral press corps who have been struggling over what to do about NASA’s decision to withhold shuttle launch times …

This time, the source was wrong…

Reporters often rely on police officials for information, but when sources are wrong, it can be devastating. Last month, San Diego police released incorrect information that said an odor of alcohol was detected in a truck involved in a Carmel Mountain Ranch accident in which the driver was killed.

While already mourning the death of a beloved husband, father and son, the family of Eric Thorson, 52, of Ramona, suffered even more hurt when the information appeared March 24 in The San Diego Union-Tribune.

Thorson’s parents, Jeanne and Clint Thorson of Reedly, sent a …

Are they ‘terrorists,’ ‘gunmen,’ or ‘guerrillas’?…

With the intense fighting going on in the West Bank, NPR has received hundreds of emails and phone calls insisting that NPR’s descriptions of the Israelis or the Palestinians are inaccurate and biased.

Some pro-Israeli supporters insist that no other word but “terrorist” can accurate describe the Palestinians.

But pro-Palestinian listeners say that this is a struggle of national liberation. They say their side should be called “resistance fighters”, “guerillas”, even “soldiers.” They also insist that the Israeli army actions in the West Bank are “aggressions” or “incursions” while the pro-Israel listeners want …

Newspapers try to balance journalism and profits…

“You’re just trying to sell more newspapers.”

I hear that from readers and I ask, “so, what’s wrong with that?” It’s like accusing Goodyear of “just trying to sell more tires.”

OK, I know what readers are saying. You are accusing the paper of misdirected motives, of sensationalizing the news in a quest for more sales.

My answer: Not true.

But when Gary Hetrick, an accountant from Medina, took time from his busy tax season to send me an e-mail, I was intrigued by his perspective. His point? The Akron Beacon Journal should share …