Old school journalism may be dying, but Mike Gousha is thriving as the elite open-minded journalist in Wisconsin.

After years of being a political reporter and anchor at the Milwaukee NBC network, Gousha said he “grew disillusioned,” and announced his resignation in 2006. Soon there after, Marquette Law School Dean Joe Kearney approached Gousha about continuing with serious journalism. Gousha accepted and in 2007 began his time as a distinguished fellow in law and policy.

Gousha informed our class that this switch positioned him to be the moderator for serious, thoughtful and challenging discourse within the region. His On The Issues with Mike Gousha invites newsmakers and policy shapers to discuss topics pertaining not only to the city of Milwaukee but also to Wisconsin as a state. He has hosted everyone from Rev. Scott R. Pilzrz, S.J, President of Marquette University to Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin. This has broken ground for numerous political debates, in what Gousha hopes to “be a force for public good.”
In 2008, Gousha returned to anchoring television when he began producing a Sunday morning show called Up Front with Mike Gousha.  Gousha explained it as a forum to “talk about the issues of the day—not necessarily a place for screaming and yelling.”

Up Front and On The Issues have given space for smart and interesting conversation and discourse in a truly bipartisan way. The synergy between the two forums has allowed for Gousha to focus on the specific goal of thoughtful and civil conversation. Civil debate, Gousha commented, has become lost art in current television news, but he believes there still needs to be a place for it in current journalism.

“I don’t think my job is to be a prosecutor,” Gousha said. “Facts that are shaped to form a political philosophy—that troubles me. These cable news anchors are the new school political pundits and are not practicing journalism.”

Indeed, Gousha’s point of view is refreshing in a world of 24-hour cable news networks dominating the story, with politicians trying to appease them and cater to their critiques. Blurring the line between entertainment and news is dangerous and ineffective—and affirming people, as Gousha said, is not informing them.

Gousha’s non-partisan views were inspiring, and I left Thursday’s class feeling pumped up about the still evident good in the field. After a weekend, however, and a tad bit of cynicism, I am distraught that while experienced Gousha could make a change in presenting issues, novice journalists do not have such a luxury. We live in a polarized time—which is troubling. Even more troubling: if we don’t take a side, we could easily be pushed aside. 

"Polling is merely an instrument for gauging public opinion. When a president or any other leader pays attention to poll results, he is, in effect, paying attention to the views of the people. Any other interpretation is nonsense," so stated George Gallup, a pioneer in the American polling industry. 

Charles Franklin seems to agree. Franklin, a visiting professor at Marquette University and co-founder of Pollster.com has been in the polling field for years, working on national and local elections, as well as with private polling. 

Currently working on the politically independent Marquette Law School Poll, Franklin is developing questions and polling techniques to shed light on the heartbeat of Wisconsin politics in this election year. 

In speaking with my journalism class this afternoon, Franklin spoke of his work in policy polling and the implications of the latest round of law school polling. Calling political polling the latest form of beat journalism, Franklin echoed Gallup's words, stating that while with every political poll "at least one party will be unhappy with the results and contest it [for the most part] pollsters and political counterparts want fair and non-biased polling, because otherwise it wouldn't do much good."

In order to create as impartial a poll as possible in order to return the most accurate results, Franklin forms specifically worded questions and uses creative statistical analysis in interpreting the results. With the creation of Pollster.com, polls were viewed in the aggregate to learn of polling trends instead of relying solely on the latest poll to indicate the country's mood. Franklin said that aggregating polls prevents using "grossly misleading polling data," by looking at the trends of multiple polls.  

"Aggregate polls allow [pollsters] to pull out the signal from the noise and present it in an effective way," Franklin said. 

Since The Huffington Post purchased Pollster.com in 2010, Franklin has continued polling. He came to Marquette in 2011, and has been working on making the Marquette Law School Poll the premiere poll in the state. Polling is conducted about once a month concerning a wide range of issues in order to determine what is shaping public opinion. Each survey interviews 700 registered voters, chosen at random from every phone number (including cell phones) in the state. 

Questions are formulated strategically to be non-partisan in nature, unlike interest group-sponsored polling, which phrases questions in ways to strategically support their case without being factually wrong in order to drive home their desired point.

The Marquette Law School poll focusses on registered voters, chosen at random from a phone bank in which every phone number in the state is eligible. About 15 percent of respondents in each poll are newly-registered voters.By using phone polling instead of online polling, the results are more statistically sound. This is because online polling is entirely based on volunteer samples and thus is not random at all-- which Franklin says is fundamental to the science of voting. 


March poll results will be released next week, and I will do a follow-up blog to discuss the outcomes. 

Tuesday brought relief to the Romney campaign after the Michigan native won his home state, as well as the Arizona primaries. Romney may be excited about his victory, but I am excited that the race is finally receiving coverage in the Philadelphia news market-- better late than never!

This was the first campaign stop that Philly.com covered extensively with live blogs, multiple articles and the usual AP stories. 

The best part about Philly.com's site is that the way they cover local politics in regards to the national election. The Inquirer especially focuses on the importance of the race locally, but this is a new development on the site. One article discusses the opening of an Obama campaign office in Philadelphia, while another talks about the GOP race happenings and how it will affect the race in Pennsylvania.