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Viewpoints don’t reflect poll results

My wife and I are daily readers of the Mirror and we find it to be informative and generally well-written.

That said, in the Sunday, June 2 edition, the “Sunday Viewpoints” feature in particular, the manner in which responses to the question were presented was quite disturbing and misleading.

The question was, “How do you view the disagreements between President Donald Trump and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi?”

The results indicated that 63.8 percent of the respondents sided with Pelosi while 31.5 percent sided with Trump.

Despite this 2-1 difference in favor of Pelosi, the Mirror photographer chose to include the photos of two men who called Pelosi an “idiot.”

The other two felt that compromise was needed between the two suggesting that they sided with neither Trump nor Pelosi.

My point is this: The opinions and photos of the selected respondents were not reflective of the overall sentiment of those polled. Twice as many respondents sided with Pelosi, and yet that was clearly not conveyed to the readership if one were to only view the photos and not read the results.

Indeed, the adage that a picture is worth a thousand words certainly came into play.

Finally, perhaps many readers get the message from a photo and may not take the time to read the details.

That photo may just confirm and reinforce their own beliefs, or more appropriately, their biases, instead of seeking the details.

Jay D. Buchanan

Huntingdon

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