Comments on Tony's Blog: Media oversight from the unexpected angle.

Yes, that's part of the highly questionable fu...

2009-09-07T14:08:09.988+01:00

Yes, that's part of the highly questionable fudging. I'm just addressing the bit about "small sample size."

David, isn't the number they used for the onli...

2009-09-07T13:53:48.053+01:00

David, isn't the number they used for the online population here being larger than other reported figures important because they are reporting a number not a percentage?

The sample size (about 1000) is not an issue - rem...

2009-09-07T13:16:33.868+01:00

The sample size (about 1000) is not an issue - remember that the quality of the result (the resolution) depends *entirely* on the sample size, *not* on the size of the population. Doesn't matter if the population is ten thousand, 100,000, a million or fifty million - if the sample size is 1000, you'll get a +/- 10% figure, which is plenty good enough to go on with.

(This is a surprising mathematical result, which is why first-year statistics students get it beaten into their heads: RESOLUTION relates only to SAMPLE SIZE, it does NOT relate to POPULATION SIZE.)

The problematic aspect is the massaging they then did to the figure.