Interview: Prof. Fuchs- My Ha'aretz Poll Design Yields High "Don't Knows"

Aaron Lerner Date: 1 December 2003

IMRA interviewed Prof. Camille Fuchs, in English on 1 December.

Prof. Fuchs supervised the Dialogue survey company poll for Haaretz released
the day before the Geneva initiative ceremony finding 31.2% support, 37.7%
oppose, 19.7% have no position and 11.3% are either not familiar with or
never heard of the "Geneva Agreement". The results were headlined by
Haaretz and the media as "37.7% oppose and 31.2% favor".

IMRA: Unlike other polls, there is no description of the Geneva Initiative
in your poll for Haaretz. Do you think that this may have increased the
number of people who either declined to give an answer or take a position?

Fuchs: I didn't see any polls in which there is a description.

IMRA: The Dahaf polls for Yediot Ahronot, the New Wave polls for Maariv,
the Peace Index polls for the Tami Steinmetz Center all have descriptions.
In fact, I am not aware of any other poll that asked the question the way
that you did, simply asking "are you for or against the Geneva Agreement"
without any details. You are the exception, not the other way around.

Fuchs: What I am saying is that I don't know how you can describe the Geneva
Agreement in one question.

IMRA: You mean that it cannot be properly described in a short question.

Fuchs: Yes. Because what happens is that it is no longer clear what you
are talking about. Are you talking about refugees? Jerusalem? borders?
Those are the three main questions that if I would do something like a focus
group I would chose as the main points in the Geneva Agreement.

I don't know what the other pollsters are doing in their descriptions of the
Geneva Agreement. In fact, you have made me curious to see what they have
been doing.

IMRA: So leaving it the way you did bumps up the groups that do not take a
position.

Fuchs: I believe that if you include some description then by its nature it
has to be very short, brief and incomplete and then you push the respondents
into some kind of response depending on how you word the question.

IMRA: Whatever you highlight in the short description that you read over the
phone.

Fuchs: Right. But we know that. There are books about that. About how to
ask questions "objectively" so as not to push people into answering in a way
that they did not intend to.

There is also a problem regarding what the respondents feel the pollster is
expecting them to say.

For example, if you were to say "are you for a program that allows some
refugees to return" then 90% of the respondent would say "no".

IMRA: And if you asked people if they thought that Israel's air defenses
should start on the Green Line then people would probably say "now wait a
minute here."

Fuchs: Yes.

Dr. Aaron Lerner, Director IMRA (Independent Media Review & Analysis)
(mail POB 982 Kfar Sava)
Tel 972-9-7604719/Fax 972-3-7255730
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