AMA’s Coup: How a Sex Survey of 644 College Girls Became the Top Story of Spring Break
Everybody did a story on it — check out the hundreds of Google News items if you don’t believe us.
“It” was an online survey commissioned by the American Medical Association that revealed that:
83 percent of college women and graduates said spring break involves heavier-than-usual drinking;
74 percent said the trips result in increased sexual activity;
and, even more pruriently, of those who had gone on a spring break trip:
13 percent said they had sexual activity with more than one partner; and
10 percent said they regretted engaging in public or group sexual activity.
Wow. Is that cable-news-ready stuff, or what?
Only problem is, the survey didn’t actually reveal much of anything — except how dependent news organizations are on manufactured content.
For example:
Only 27 percent — or 173 women among those surveyed — had ever even been on a spring break trip.
Which means that:
Only 17 women surveyed had “regretted engaging in public or group sexual activity;” and
Only 22 women “had sexual activity with more than one partner.”
Doesn’t sound too earthshaking to us. Guess that’s why the AMA, its pollsters, and the news organizations all decided to stick with the percentages.
(Image from SpringBreakWorld.com)
Technorati tags: Journalism, PR, Public Relations, Marketing
Agreed. My two most frequent peeves re: surveys. First, most are nonsense without any clearly defined methodology. Second, the mainstream traditional media will run anything. They rarely, if ever, run the methodologies and then never question those methodologies.
And these are the people that claim they are in the position to tell us what we “need to know” and are looking out after the public’s best interests? Yeah, right.
With friends and advocates like them … yeah, you know the rest.