In the U.S., we are knee deep in political coverage, and tons of the coverage of the presidential race is driven by national polls, which show one candidate or the other leading the national race. The problem with all the coverage and headlines, of course, is that it's not a national race and so national polls are essentially meaningless. But still, they get reported because they are easy, because it's quicker to cover a horse race than it is to do any real reporting on the issues being discussed and because the storyline of loser/winner is one that everyone quickly understands. Of course, it's week two of the NCAA Football season, and I'm reminded (again) that polls here are also equally horrific, albeit in a much less impactful way. Here are the preseason polls, remember not a game has been played and teams (this being college and all) have a bunch of new players. So this is essentially glorified guessing. Here is week two, which is also essentially worthless in that some teams have played a single game....but the polls matter because at the end of the season they'll decide who plays for the fictitious national championship. So if a team is not ranked in the top 10 going into the season, they have a next to nil chance to play -- even if they win every single game. Sheesh. The same point is true for these polls tho -- they allow the media to set up easy storylines -- it's way more sexy to say "second ranked team plays 10th ranked team" than it is to say something more substantive about the game.
So what we have is polling degrading the political process AND destroying college football, a rare twofer. If I weren't such a believer in press freedoms, i'd be advocating for a total moratorium on any kind of poll-driven coverage!
Oh, UO Ducks ranked 16. Tough game next week however. Even if Purdue is unranked and all. ;)