Thread by @BMHayward

There is a ‘thing’ happening in political editorials in #nzpol where suddenly we seemed to have switched from ‘the election is going to be very close’ to ‘National with Act will win’. It’s quite marked & startling given that NZ media is using the same polls to flip the narrative

I don’t want to name the media stations as it’s been mostly junior #nzpol reporters who have been covering politics over the holiday weekend while Act’s party is on but we need a bit more editorial oversight please because calling outcomes has a voter suppression effect

We also know that one of the biggest single influences on vote behaviour is thinking that everyone else is going to vote in a particular way. Act has been extremely effective in its comms but that is not the same as calling election outcomes 5 months out in a very tight race

So one outcome of continual over enthusiastic reading of Act’s performance without sufficient poll evidence is that could for eg suppress marginal Labour voters and influence the vote choice of those who might have otherwise voted National

Reporting on elections is hard & comes with a big responsibility-it’s not just one opinion vs another-careful political editorial oversight of mainstream media is what enables trust in news outlets when many people are otherwise sourcing info from uncorroborated social platforms

Someone just reminded me of a similar problem the US media ran into when it started reporting sweeping prediction statements in the last mid term US elections. The NZ polls are currently simply too close to call right now amp.cnn.com/cnn/2022/11/09…