“Unexpected results of a new poll”?

Kiwiblog’s David Farrar has nominated 3 News for the most misleading story of the week in their reporting of a political poll because their story does not mention that the poll was only a sample of Maori voters, not a sample of all voters:

“Labour most popular party in new poll…

Labour leader Phil Goff will be clinging to the unexpected results of a new poll in which his party has picked up twice as much support as National.

But he is well behind John Key in the preferred prime minister stakes, according to the TVNZ Marae Investigates Digipoll, released today.

Labour’s on 38.4 percent support in the poll, followed by the Maori Party on 22.2 percent, while National’s on just 16.4 percent. That is in stark contrast to other media polls, which put National above 50 percent support, with Labour rating at 30 percent or less, and the Maori Party on around one percent support.

…The TVNZ poll interviewed 1002 respondents between August 19 and September 20, and has a margin of error of +/- 3.1 percent.”

The original press release from TVNZ does state this very clearly:

Full release of Digipoll Maori Voter Survey… The TVNZ Marae Investigates Digipoll is one the most established voter polls in NZ and often the only one to survey Maori voters in an election year.

In a further 3 News article they discuss a different poll and say that “the poll differs greatly to one released by TVNZ’s Marae Investigates earlier today” without explanation for the difference.

UPDATE: 3 News have now updated the headline to: “Labour most popular party among Maori” and added “The TVNZ Marae Investigates Digipoll surveyed Maori listed on both the general and Maori electoral rolls.”

3 News’ Chief Editor James Murray apologised on Kiwiblog:

“Got to put our hands up to a genuine mistake there. This was a story from our wire service, and we didn’t do our due diligence in fact-checking it.

We absolutely understand the importance of getting this right, and the story has now been corrected. My team have been told to be extra vigilant on poll stories in future and NZN have been informed of the error.

Apologies for anyone who may have been misled by this mistake.”