WASHINGTON, DC—
By John Fredericks
What happens when an election poll isn’t just wrong, isn’t just misleading, but completely made up? And what happens when those phony numbers get laundered through major polling aggregators and served up to millions of Americans as legitimate political news?
That’s not a polling error. That’s a five-alarm credibility crisis.
And FCC Chairman Brendan Carr just put America’s television and radio broadcasters on notice.
Finally, somebody in Washington is taking on the fake polling racket.
Carr is emerging as one of the most fearless and consequential watchdogs in Washington, and he’s going straight at an issue the corporate media establishment would rather sweep under the rug.
His message is unmistakable: Your federal broadcasting licenses come with responsibilities. Deliberate news distortion is not one of them.
For years, I’ve been pounding the table about misleading election polls, questionable methodology, bogus sampling and a corporate media establishment that treats every Democrat-friendly survey like it was handed down from Mount Sinai.
Now Carr is taking the issue directly to broadcasters.
On Wednesday, October 21, Carr warned that what he described as fake and suppression polls could run afoul of federal rules against deliberate news distortion and broadcast hoaxes.
He alleges some polls are designed to manipulate voter enthusiasm and turnout.
And he’s demanding greater responsibility from broadcasters who put these numbers before millions of Americans.
Good for Brendan Carr.
He’s asking a question that should have been asked long ago:
Are broadcasters reporting public opinion, or helping manufacture it?
And then came the bombshell.
A polling operation called Wedgewood Polls admitted it had published fabricated election surveys as part of what it described as an experiment exposing weaknesses in the polling industry.
Fake numbers. Phony data. Made-up polling.
Surveys that never happened.
And here’s the kicker: Some of these manufactured numbers actually found their way into major polling aggregators before investigators at FiftyPlusOne exposed the deception.
This wasn’t somebody missing an election result by three points by oversampling Democrats.
This was data that wasn’t real!
In Michigan, Democratic state Senator Mallory McMorrow says one of Wedgewood’s fabricated polls damaged her Senate campaign, drying up donations and devastating volunteers.
Think about that.
A fake poll potentially influencing a real political campaign.
That’s not political science. That’s political poison.
And that’s why Carr’s warning is so important.
The FCC chairman understands that Americans deserve journalism built on verification, accountability and facts.
Not a conveyor belt of questionable numbers packaged as breaking news.
Naturally, Democratic FCC Commissioner Anna Gomez is pushing back, arguing that broadcasters shouldn’t face punishment merely because a legitimately reported poll turns out to be inaccurate.
And on that narrow point, she’s right.
A wrong poll is not automatically a fraudulent poll.
The FCC’s rules do not prohibit good-faith reporting of inaccurate surveys. Carr’s warning is not a formal finding that any particular broadcaster broke the law.
But deliberately fabricated data is an entirely different animal.
And Carr is right to demand that broadcasters take their responsibility to the public seriously.
The First Amendment protects a free press. It doesn’t excuse journalists from checking their facts.
I’ve spent years telling my audience that polling headlines without methodology are practically worthless.
Who paid for the poll? Who was surveyed? How were respondents selected? How were Republicans, Democrats and Independents weighted? What do the crosstabs show?
Show us the receipts.
Because Americans are sick and tired of being told an election is over before they’ve even voted.
They’re tired of media narratives presented as mathematical certainties.
They’re tired of the polling-industrial complex pretending every survey deserves unquestioned credibility.
Brendan Carr is challenging that complacency, and I applaud him for it.
Real journalism investigates. Real journalism verifies. Real journalism questions the numbers before broadcasting them.
And real broadcasters should welcome that standard, regardless of which party benefits.
An election poll is supposed to measure public opinion. Not manufacture it.
Brendan Carr has put the issue squarely on the national agenda.
Now it’s time for the polling industry and the corporate legacy media to deliver something Americans have been demanding for years: truth and accountability.
These fake polls are just another hoax on America, collaborated by the Left.
The American people deserve better.