Fact-Checking KSL's Davis County Election Story

KSL did a story on the final election results in Davis County.  You can read the story here, if you want to.  But, there is a major issue with something stated in the story.  Oh, and Davis County gets excited about low numbers.

First, the excitement:

Davis County officials say mail-in ballots brought in more voters than expected in an off-year election and cranked up voter engagement to exciting levels.

"We think that the voters this election were more informed and more engaged than they have ever been in any other election," Brian McKenzie, Davis County election manager, said Tuesday.

"Cranked up to exciting levels!"  I hope it's all the way up to 11!

The nearly 48 percent voter turnout fell below that in the last off-year election, but McKenzie still calls it a success.

How exciting!  Less than half of the people registered to vote in Davis County turned out!  They cranked it up to 5!

But, here comes the part that needs fact checking:

Final results also revealed that 77 percent of Davis County voters cast a straight Republican Party ticket

That would mean that of the nearly 65,000 people who showed up to vote, 50,000 of them voted straight party.

Why, then, do the official numbers from Davis County show the number to be significantly less?  Like, say 17,984?

Because KSL doesn't know how to read the results.  See, 77% of the Davis County voters who chose to vote straight party voted Republican.  It was actually 27.5%.

Real news outlets would have people who understand these things report on election results.

Get the latest news from KSL.com

I don't mind a good human-interest story every once in a while.  It helps break up the monotony of real, hard hitting news.

Well, what they try to pass off as hard hitting news these days.

Today, KSL gave us this great story about some kids who built a roller coaster in their back yard for $50.

Must have been a witch to do it in the snow, right?

Oh, they did it before the snow?  OK.  Sounds like a fun way to spend Thanksgiving weekend.

They did it in August?!  Oh. Do they know it's December?

Must have been a slow news day over there at Triad.

I can't wait for tomorrow's story on the latest back-to-school fashions.

-Bob

Horrible Birther Poll Reporting by KSL/DesNews

The Results:

Do you believe that Barack Obama was born in Hawaii and, therefore, is a U.S. citizen?

Definitely a U.S. citizen: 48%
Probably a U.S. citizen: 19%
Probably Not a U.S. citizen: 4%
Definitely not a U.S. citizen: 5%
Don't Know: 23%

(n=402, Conducted Aug 3-5, MoE =/- 5%)

So, 9% of those polled don't think Obama's a citizen. So, how do you spin the poll?

DesNews: 1/3 of Utahns question Obama birthplace

KSL: One-third of Utahns unsure if Pres. Obama is American

-Bob

KSL ojects to PCE advertising

From KSL.com:

On October 17, 2007, KSL 5 Eyewitness News aired a report evaluating the truth of certain claims made in recent political advertisements. One portion of this report evaluated ads being aired by both proponents and opponents of Referendum 1. In the story, KSL took no position for or against Referendum 1, and no position either for or against Referendum 1 was intended to be implied by the story.

Recently, an organization that supports Referendum 1 sent out a direct mail flier quoting portions of KSL's news story as support for that organization's views about Referendum 1. KSL believes that the flier implies that KSL itself produced, or was at least involved in producing, the flier. This is not the case.

Indeed, the KSL Editorial Board has aired an editorial stating that it is opposed to Referendum 1. KSL strongly encourages all citizens to carefully and independently research this and other political issues before casting their votes at the polls.

Bloggers, Accountablility, and the MSM (namely KSL)

This has been bugging me for quite some time. This doesn't anger me as someone who is against vouchers.

This pisses me off as a blogger.

You see, this biggest case against bloggers is that we have no accountability. We can "post anything" we want to, and throw the truth out the window.

Whereas the "mainstream" media has accountability, or at least that's what they say.

Then, where is the accountability at KSL?

On October 17, KSL's Richard Piatt ran a story comparing the "truthfulness" of ads run by Parents for Choice in Education and Utahns for Public Schools. The only problem is, the report itself was full of inaccuracies. These inaccuracies were pointed out by Bill Keshlear and Kim R. Burningham.

Yet, the fact that their report was wrong doesn't seem to matter to KSL. They have not yet published any retraction. In fact, Piatt's response to Keshlear's email was that he stands by his story.

I hereby call on all bloggers, and lovers of blogs, to ask KSL to issue a retraction. We need an honest and respectable news media.

-Bob