Is It Just Me?

I watch with mounting amazement (and more than a little trepidation) as more and more politically-motivated, ignorant people and groups latch onto specious, baseless arguments that because the PPM methodology delivers results that are less kind to certain societal segments, the methodology must perforce be wrong.

My heart goes out to those so affected, but Arbitron’s PPM initiative has been perhaps the most scrutinized, researched and cross-checked methodology in the history of statistics. Is it perfect? Of course not. The results of any sample-based research is subject to statistical error. (Statisticians don’t like the term “error,” preferring the more glass-half-full “significance.” Whatever.) But it’s demonstrably closer to reality than what it supplants. And no broadcaster or statistician with whom I’ve talked disagrees.

We are going through very strange times. Truth is irrelevant. We, as a society, shrug off the most outrageous misstatements of fact. Our BS meter has pegged so much that it’s now broken. It would appear that Orwell’s 1984 has finally arrived, a mere 25 years late.