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A tribute to "applied sociologist" Leo Bogart.

Based on personal experience in both mass media work & survey research, a theoretical perspective on the sources of conflict between these two fields is presented. Examples of incidents leading to conflict are cited: tenure was denied to a political science instructor whose publications were too journalistic; & a journalist was criticized for writing too much like a political scientist, even though the information he discovered through analysis of a national poll was unequivocal. It is argued that journalism needs stronger scientific methodological underpinnings despite these conflicts. Precision journalism, which utilizes social & behavioral science research methods, is one way to achieve this. While it conflicts with the journalistic traditions of simplicity, passivity, & innocence, these traditions are shown to contain flaws of their own. The referendum model of public opinion polling is contrasted with precision journalism, revealing the latter to be superior. National election polls are discussed with respect to the structure of voter subsets, & to techniques of sampling & measurement, emphasizing the need to move journalism closer to science in stating predictions in measurable, testable form. 6 References. C. Grindle

Modern polling methodology is giving US citizens more information than they sometimes want or expect. Contrary to popular opinion, this unexpected abundance of information about voters does not threaten the system & may even help it work better. The need for information is especially acute in light of the two-party system, where coalition building takes place in partisan activity before the election rather than after, as is the case of European multi-party systems. The weakening of the parties & the shift of some of their functions to direct popular control only increases the need for all kinds of information, ranging in scope from candidate sexual behavior to public opinion data, & forces a new & not always wanted role on the mass media. 11 References. Adapted from the source document.

Survey of Detroit readers indicates how paper treats 'plain folks' is more likely to cause dissatisfaction than how it treats counterculture or authorities.