Source: The Militant, Vol. 12 No. 46, 15 November 1948, p. 4.
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Why did the entire capitalist press and all the pollsters turn out wrong in their predictions about the election?
We can expect that explanations of this universal error will be featured for some time to come and no doubt they will be as weighty and ponderous as the reasons they gave before the election for the certainty of a Dewey victory.
Very likely they’ll discover why the polls went wrong and try to improve them or at least leave greater opening for the possibility of sharp changes and shifts in opinion and so attempt to refurbish their reputation.
But the polls, after all, represented the views of only three or four small agencies whose resources for sampling public opinion cannot be compared with those of the newspaper industry. How could these great institutions go so completely wrong? The fact is all the more amazing if you consider how highly organized and efficient the modern newspaper is.
News of an event in the remotest corner of the world can be placed on the streets together with photos of the happening within an hour or two of the occurrence. The giant presses can turn out millions of copies of papers containing as much copy as large books, and edition after edition can be distributed in record time throughout a great metropolitan area.
Not only is virtually the entire world within seeing and hearing distance of the editorial office, but every section and stratum of society is touched by the sensitive feelers of the newspaper. Every big newspaper has its own staff of highly trained men. They are in constant touch with people and supposedly keenly alive to public sentiment.
In addition, every major paper enjoys the services of the great associations that feed news on to the wires and teletypes. Through these channels, the big newspapers are connected with the smallest local papers throughout the country.
How could this whole vast, intricate set-up go haywire in estimating the sentiments of the people?
The answer can be found by checking on who controls the press. Although the big newspapers are supposed to serve the public, and be organs of public opinion, they are not free to register the wishes and sentiments of the people. As a matter of fact, these institutions are perverted to the will of a tiny selfish minority – America’s 60 ruling families.
These ruling families, who control the press, wanted a Republican victory. They utilized the newspapers as one of their most important propaganda weapons in the Republican campaign. They hoped that the weight of the press would help prove decisive in determining the outcome of the election.
Since editorial policy called for a Republican victory, the reporters and re-write men whose job security depends on pleasing management naturally felt receptive to facts seeming to bear out that policy, less receptive to contrary facts, and inclined to slant news in accordance with editorial wishes. That’s in the best case. Many editors, of course, deliberately doctored the news.
Thus we witnessed the amazing spectacle of the entire capitalist press reflecting, not the sentiments of the people but the wishes of the few thousand colossally rich individuals. The most ironic side of this spectacle was Big Business and its press getting caught up in their own propaganda and letting wishful thinking blind them to reality.
The capitalist editors and pollsters are now doing their best to squirm out of their embarrassing position as gracefully as possible. Some poke fun at each other’s expense in the style of football dopesters eating crow over an upset. Others draw a “sharp” lesson about over-confidence and resolve to pay more heed to the warning signs they disregarded.
But the real lesson to be drawn from their “error” – the evil of monopoly control of the press, is one lesson none of them will draw.
Last updated on: 29 March 2023