Keeping the public informed
Your editorial “Polls should be kept private” (July 14, page 6), raised serious concerns for this “public be informed” communication professor.
As I tell my students time and again: “There is no such thing as too much information.”
Yes, there is no argument that the methods used by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) for determining potential trends are seriously flawed, but this is not an instance where the government should mandate how information is collected.
Rather, this is an opportunity for the opposition party to conduct its own polls — which would, presumably, result in far more accurate predictions — and then carefully explain how the results more accurately reflect Taiwanese citizens’ opinions.
I would hope that Taiwan’s leaders will have the decency to ensure that those who have a right to know, who rely on their leaders to be open and transparent in their communication, are not denied the opportunity to come to their own conclusions based on full public disclosure on both sides of the political fence.
Kirk Hazlett
Tampa, Florida
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