gallup polls

When I first looked at the gallup page I noticed the polls at the top. Polls like economic outlook 39% say it is looking better and 56% say it is getting worse. And Economic conditions, which 10% said excellent/ good and 48% said poor. Those polls did not surprise me. A poll that surprised me was the Obama job approval poll. In which 54% approved and 40% disapproved. I was surprised by this poll because the majority of major news stations do not show disapproving stories about Obama. The only major news company which does is FOX news. Now if only one of several news stations is showing doubt of the President you would think the news would be reported according to what the national opinion is. But yet only 1 news station is showing the views of 40% of the country. I find that rather interesting. Another rather interesting poll is one concerning sending more troops to Afghanistan. According to the poll "Americans are now divided on sending more U.S. troops to Afghanistan: 48% say they would favor President Obama’s deciding to send more troops and 45% say they would oppose his doing so. Two weeks ago, Americans were more likely to oppose than favor increasing the U.S. troop presence there." I find it interesting that in a few weeks public opinion can change so much. Personally I Believe that this drastic change and changes like it are due to the fact that the American public is far to lazy to make an informed decision on their own, as a result they rely on the major news companies to tell them what to think. Another interesting poll I found is also relating to Afghanistan. It was a poll on the opinions of the Afghan people and sending more U.S. troops there. The poll says "As President Barack Obama mulls whether to commit more troops to Afghanistan, a Gallup survey during the troop buildup earlier this year found nearly half of Afghans (49%) saying additional troops would help stabilize the security situation in the southern provinces. Thirty-two percent said they would not." I found this interesting not only because I had a debate on the subject this weekend at a debate tournament and I was told that according to CNN and MSNBC a poll they conducted (with 70 participants might I add) said the 83% would oppose more U.S. troops. Now how can their be such different results? Well obviously the news companies set up polls to make it seem that their opinions were supported by the Afghan people. The one thing I have learned from this assignment is to make sure I double check sources and polls for now on.