ST. PETERSBURG, Fla., Jan. 19, 2012 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- When can you trust a poll? Why do polls sometimes disagree? When is a candidate really ahead in an election race? How can you go beyond the "horse race" numbers and understand real motivations of voters?

The public, press and politicians face a daily barrage of public opinion polls asserting what the public believes, desires and how they will vote. To help demystify and understand public opinion polls, the American Association for Public Opinion Research (www.AAPOR.org) and The Poynter Institute's e-learning site, News University (www.newsu.org), have teamed up to offer a one-hour Webinar on Thursday, Jan. 26, 2012. The Webinar, Election 2012 Reporting: Understanding Opinion Polls, will begin at 2 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time. Access to the live webcast and the archived web recording costs $24.95.

In addition to the Webinar, AAPOR and Poynter invite journalists and others to enroll in a free online course on Understanding and Interpreting Polls (2012 edition). The newly updated self-directed course teaches how public opinion polls work and how to accurately and confidently report on polls. It also offers guidance on how to decide whether a poll is legitimate and explains how cell phones have affected modern surveys.

The Webinar will feature a live audio and slideshow presentation in which participants can post questions and respond to poll questions posed by the presenter, Claudia Deane. Deane, associate director for public opinion and survey research at the Kaiser Family Foundation, will present on behalf of AAPOR.

A computer with Internet access and a telephone line are required to join the presentation. For more information and to register, go to www.newsu.org/understanding-2012-election-polls.

About the American Association for Public Opinion Research

The American Association for Public Opinion Research (www.AAPOR.org) is the leading professional organization of public opinion and survey research professionals in the U.S., with members from academia, media, government, the non-profit sector and private industry.

About Poynter and Poynter's News University

The Poynter Institute trains journalism practitioners, media leaders, educators and citizens in the areas of online and multimedia, leadership and management, reporting, writing and editing, TV and radio, ethics and diversity, journalism education and visual journalism. Poynter's website, (http://www.poynter.org) is the dominant provider of journalism news, with a focus on business analysis and the opportunities and implications of technology. Poynter's News University (http://www.newsu.org) offers training to journalists, journalism students, teachers and the public through more than 275 interactive e-learning modules and other forms of training. It has more than 200,000 registered users in 225 countries.

CONTACT
Howard Finberg, Director of Interactive Learning
hfinberg@poynter.org

Jessica Blais, Director of Marketing
jblais@poynter.org
727-821-9494

SOURCE Poynter's News University

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RELATED LINKS
http://www.poynter.org
http://www.newsu.org
http://www.AAPOR.org