Local Investigative Blogger Shows How It’s Done
“Business-friendly Republicans in West Michigan may be underwhelmed by the impeachment proceedings against President Donald Trump,” the Michigan Advance reports.
“But based on random interviews around Grand Rapids this weekend, following a national news segment many found unrepresentative of the area, many locals find impeachment critical for holding the president accountable.
“Meet the Press, the stalwart Sunday morning political gabfest on NBC, has made Kent County in West Michigan a major point of focus for its 2020 election coverage.
“On Sunday that included a segment with six Grand Rapids-area Republicans sharing their lack of enthusiasm with the impeachment effort during a roundtable discussion filmed at Brewery Vivant, a Grand Rapids brewery in the trendy East Hills neighborhood.”
Let’s let Emptywheel, aka Marcy Wheeler, pick it up from here.
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Holy shit none of you told me MTP, on top of interviewing a non-representative sample of Kent County voters, mispronounced my local beer bar’s name.
THIS IS THE LAST STRAW. https://t.co/9humBFDHkV
— emptywheel (@emptywheel) December 15, 2019
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And who the fuck goes to @breweryvivant and doesn’t drink the beer?
— emptywheel (@emptywheel) December 15, 2019
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Here’s their demo:
A Cornerstone U theology prof 👀
Retired Chamber Exec
Attorney
Private Equity analystThis is not even representative of white Kent County.
— emptywheel (@emptywheel) December 15, 2019
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Anyway, back to the panel: Kent County’s median income is $57K. Those panelists described probably make twice that, personally. https://t.co/ndsL4KZW9W
— emptywheel (@emptywheel) December 15, 2019
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So for Grand Rapidians who thought Meet the Press did a poor job of representing the community today, @nickrmanes and I will be at @breweryvivant asking what you think about impeachment starting at 5. We may be in the back bar. Come find us!
— emptywheel (@emptywheel) December 15, 2019
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So far everyone who we’ve talked to at @breweryvivant supports impeachment–if recognizing how it’ll challenge the country. https://t.co/sTG60QJlQw
— emptywheel (@emptywheel) December 15, 2019
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Another person in W MI who didn’t show up on Meet the Press who supports impeachment. https://t.co/NDECMFaj9O
— emptywheel (@emptywheel) December 15, 2019
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We interview 6 people, just like Meet the Press did.
No vetting, just people we grabbed off the street.
All 6 supported impeachment. 5 Voted Hillary, all but one reluctantly. Somehow MTP found none of these people.
— emptywheel (@emptywheel) December 16, 2019
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Don’t come into my local brewpub with people who would never otherwise be there, @chucktodd. Don’t disappear us, goddamnit. https://t.co/8POqFTPDzZ
— emptywheel (@emptywheel) December 16, 2019
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Full thread including video of each voter interviewed.
Yesterday, Meet the Press aired what purported to be a panel of Kent County MI voters, interviewed at @breweryvivant, my superb neighborhood brewery. The panel was a bunch of affluent white Republicans who aren’t exactly BV’s normal clientele. So @nickrmanes and I did our own.
— emptywheel (@emptywheel) December 16, 2019
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Comments welcome.
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1. From Steve Rhodes:
My guess is that the Meet the Press folks said, “Hey, let’s go to a bar in a swing state and show how ‘real people’ don’t care about impeachment.” And then they found the people they knew would say what they wanted to hear, brought them to the bar and filmed the segment. (As if a six-person focus group is representative and statistically significant anyway; you’d never broadcast a poll of six people.)
Now, some of you out there might be saying, “No way, they wouldn’t do that.” But everyone who has ever worked in a newsroom knows that’s exactly how it works. To wit:
At newspapers, editors literally demand that reporters “Find someone who thinks X and someone who thinks Y.” Well, what if there are people who think Z? “No, those are the two views people have and that’s what we’re going to represent.”
— Beachwood Reporter (@BeachwoodReport) December 16, 2019
But what if we know Y isn’t true? “Those are the two views, go do your job.”
— Beachwood Reporter (@BeachwoodReport) December 16, 2019
Posted on December 17, 2019