This week turned out to be a busy one. Full of surprises and anti-immigrant proposals hitting the State Legislature. As we all expected, governor Pawlenty decided to announce that he was introducing his own “Proposal” to tackle illegal Immigration to the state and at the top of this, a little “affair” hit our community with all the strength of shame.
It was noon last Wednesday when an email came to our offices. The subject, “Hispanics Love Pawlenty”.
At first we thought it was a joke, but it was note. It was an actual note, published by Latino Midwest News on its web site. Mixed feelings flew over our heads so, we sat down to read it once and twice trying to understand what was that about. We read it and felt something was wrong with the note. The note, without an author, mentioned a survey published by Survey USA on January 18th as its source.
The poll, conducted by Survey USA, for KAAL-TV Rochester-Mason City-Austin, KSAX-TV Alexandria, MN, KSTP-TV Minneapolis and WDIO-TV Duluth, reveals the results of a survey conducted during January 13th to January 15th in Minnesota, using a sample of 600 people, from diverse background, race, origin and ethnicity.
The results, as published by Latino Midwest News, took us by surprise because it claims a 69% rate of approval of governor Pawlenty’s tenure by Hispanics in the state.
We found this statement very hard to believe, so we went straight to the source and did our homework gathering the information on the original poll. What we found was astonishing. A whole different thing was in front of our eyes and a very different set of numbers was telling us a different story.
We found that the original poll showed that Hispanics not only disapprove governor Pawlenty’s work at office, but they do with a 67% rate of disapproval. The opposite thing to what we read on Latino Midwest News.
We continued digging out the poll and found very disturbing numbers. None of the figures we found matched with those portrayed by Latino Midwest News. The note estates a 54% approval rate, when the poll shows 51%. The note shows a 54% approval among white people, when the poll shows 53%. The poll shows a 41% of approval among African-Americans, when the note estates 52%. But more disturbing of all, the note estates a 69% of approval among Hispanics, when the actual poll shows only a 26%. The difference is clear. Crystal clear, we most say. The math doesn’t add so we want to invite the author of this note to explain his arithmetic’s and the huge gap between his conclusions and the actual poll. Our community deserves to know why these numbers don’t add. Our community deserves to know why this note was published if it was biased and doesn’t match the actual poll.
Our community deserves an explanation and a correction, unless the author has a good explanation. Meanwhile, as we all understand, a note without an author has the same category of an editorial, meaning that it reflects the media’s point of view and it is approved by its Editorial Council or Editor and as long as this note has no author, we most assume that this is the case.
A lot of people is beginning to calls this the “Latino Midwest News Affair”, a little scandal tainting our community and the Latino media in the State.
Numbers don’t lie. People do. Sometimes numbers depict a different portrait, related to human error or manipulation to serve a specific purpose.
This “Affair” most come to an end soon and Latino Midwest News most make clear its position. It needs either to apologize for the mistake or stand by its figures, and this need to be done very soon, before the damage reaches the whole community.