The original draft of this email was sent to Washington Post reporters Heather Long and Emily Guskin, asking if they, their editors or pollsters considered traditional or more recent, media-inspired biases of poll respondents before effectively concluding that pandemic-imposed financial difficulties have fallen harder on women and minorities than on inherently reprehensible white men.
Dear Heather and Emily,
Before positing sweeping conclusions about the “struggles many Americans are still facing even as the broader economy shows signs of improvement,” did you consider the possibility that traditionally more stoic or prideful male respondents to your latest Washington Post-ABC News poll may have been somewhat reluctant, relative to traditionally more effusive female respondents, to admit they’re “financially worse off today than before the pandemic” [“Quarter of women in poll say they’re financially worse off into pandemic,” A14, Apr. 28]?
And to what extent do you suppose the willingness of respondents “of color” to share their perceived woes with pollsters may have been influenced by five straight years of nonstop, if largely false assertions by the political left and its media henchmen that America is “systemically,” even “irredeemably” racist and that the “system is rigged” against them?
Perhaps the poll’s methodology controlled for such biases but limited space precluded you from offering details. Nonetheless, I remain curious.
Darren McKinney, Washington, D.C.