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Once
upon a time, there was a magazine called Public Perspective,
which played a very important, if somewhat unheralded,
role in the world of polling. It was published by the
Roper Center for Public Opinion Research for almost
fourteen years, and I was its editor for the last two,
until the exorbitant costs of producing a print magazine
drove it out of business in the spring of 2003. Wearied
from the fight and out of a job, I retired from the
field of battle and took to a sedate life of freelance
editing, writing bad poetry, and listening to Queen.
And then, one night last April, I was
startled out of a sound sleep by two realizations: First,
in the year since Public Perspective went to
print for the last time, no one had come forward with
a new publication to fill the void it had left behind.
And second, if I didn't find something to occupy more
of my time soon, somebody was going to try to make me
do housework.
So I thought I'd start a magazine.
Public
Opinion Pros is a monthly online magazine for the
polling professional, and everybody else. Written by
people in, around, and fascinated by the field of survey
research, Public Opinion Pros attempts to do
what no other periodical publication is doing today:
explore public opinion and polling in a way that is
relevant and useful to those who make their living at
it, yet remain accessible and enlightening to nonspecialists
who take an interest in polling and the role it plays
in our democratic society. Every month, Public Opinion
Pros will offer subscribers:
- In-depth feature articles
by professional pollsters, political scientists, media
people, policymakers, government researchers, sociologists,
and others, analyzing public attitudes or views on
politics, social issues, culture, religion, and values,
as well as examining the nature of public opinion
in general and relations between the public, the media,
or policymakers and the polling community. Highly
readable magazine-style articles on some of the most
pertinent topics in polling today will be hyperlinked
to the original academic papers, additional readings,
supplemental data, and as many other valuable resources
as we can think of.
- Articles "From the Field"
exploring a wide range of subjects having to do with
the actual work of conducting public opinion research,
such as questionnaire design, problems with response
rates, sampling methodology, split-sample experiments,
even what it's like to conduct interviews in a disaster
area. Many "From the Field" articles will
be a bit more technical than regular features—we
like to think of them as giving people not in the
profession the chance to stand outside the pollsters'
office windows and peek in on their work—but
technical terms and "insider language" will
be hyperlinked to a glossary for the benefit of nonspecialists.
- Regularly appearing columns, starting
in this issue with Karen Donelan, senior scientist
in health policy at Massachusetts General Hospital
and a faculty member at Harvard Medical School, who
will write about some of the more compelling debates
and controversies going on within the polling community
itself.
- "Up-and-Coming," a showcase
for articles written by future polling professionals,
submitted by professors who send us the best work
of their most promising students.
- Generous excerpts from books concerning
opinion research that are or will soon be "In
Print."
In addition, there will be editorials,
data presentations, letters to the editor, job postings,
links to other websites, ads for books, products, and
services of interest to the field, perhaps the occasional
haiku—
And one other thing: Anyone who subscribes
to Public Opinion Pros will also be given, at
no additional cost, password-protected access to the
entire back issue library of the late, great Public
Perspective. Users will be able to search by author
name, article title, or subject, and bring to their
computer screens nearly fourteen years' worth of some
of the best reader-friendly writing and data analysis
produced by leaders in the field of public opinion research
in the past few decades.
This
is our preview issue, and everything in it is free.
So go ahead—check us out, and see what Public
Opinion Pros has to offer. Send us an email if you
have any questions. And then subscribe to Public
Opinion Pros: An Online Magazine for the Polling Professional
(and Everybody Else).
We will rock you.
—Lisa Ferraro
Parmelee, Editor
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