多家信誉良好的民调显示民主党有望在中期选举中大获全胜之际，联邦通信委员会（FCC）共和党籍主席正建议地方广播机构警惕“虚假民调”，却未具体指出他认为哪些民调造假。
With numerous reputable polls showing Democrats poised to make big gains in the midterm elections, the Republican chair of the FCC is advising local broadcasters to beware of “fake polls,” without specifying which ones he thinks are bogus.
作为唐纳德·特朗普总统的亲密盟友，布伦丹·卡尔周三向FCC持牌电台发出警告，同一天，两项新的、备受推崇的全国性民调显示特朗普的支持率再创历史新低。
Brendan Carr, a close ally of President Donald Trump, warned FCC-licensed stations on Wednesday, the same day two new, highly respected national polls showed Trump registering another record-low approval rating.
他的警告也紧随其后：前一天，一家自称民调公司的机构承认自己是“虚构实体”，捏造数据并骗过了新闻媒体。
His warning also came one day after a self-professed polling firm admitted to being a “fictional entity” that fabricated data and fooled news outlets.
这确实是一个真实存在、且令人愤怒的问题，但不应因此玷污那些帮助选民了解情况的高质量民调。
That’s a real — and infuriating — problem, but it shouldn’t besmirch the high-quality polls that are helping inform the electorate.
那么，卡尔到底在警告哪些民调？他的X帖子没说，他在周三下午也未回应CNN的置评请求，让此事笼罩在迷雾中。或许这在某种程度上正是他的用意。
So which polls was Carr warning about? His X post didn’t say, and he didn’t respond to CNN’s request for comment on Wednesday afternoon, leaving the matter nebulous. And perhaps that was partly the point.
一群前FCC官员称，卡尔的言论“是白宫加速实施的一项战略的一部分，旨在让选举竞争环境向总统有利的方向倾斜，并拒绝接受不利于他的选举结果。”
A group of former FCC officials called Carr’s message “part of an accelerating White House strategy to tilt the electoral playing field in the President’s favor and deny election results that don’t go his way.”
这些前官员还指出，“FCC没有权力指令编辑决策。”确实，国会已禁止FCC试图阻止任何观点的广播。但该机构负责为全美地方广播电台和电视台发放执照并维护基本标准，卡尔已多次利用这项有限权力向广播机构施压。新闻倡导团体认为，卡尔的最新帖子公然违背第一修正案。
The former officials also noted that “the FCC has zero authority to dictate editorial decisions.”Indeed, Congress has prohibited the FCC from trying to prevent the broadcast of any point of view. But the agency is responsible for licensing local radio and TV stations across the US and upholding basic standards, and Carr has repeatedly used that limited power to pressure broadcasters. Press advocacy groups argued that Carr’s latest post flew in the face of the First Amendment.
“每一次他攻击新闻界，都是因为报道对他的老板唐纳德·特朗普不利，而特朗普那张镀金的脸，他甚至做成胸针别在翻领上，”新闻自由基金会倡导主管塞思·斯特恩说。
“Literally every time he attacks the press, it’s because of reporting that was unfavorable to his boss, Donald Trump, whose gilded face he’s been known to wear as a lapel pin,” said Seth Stern, the chief of advocacy at the Freedom of the Press Foundation.
目前，鉴于选民对经济和国家现状普遍不满，关于共和党选举前景的负面报道很多。
Right now there’s a lot of unfavorable reporting about the Republican Party’s electoral prospects, given widespread voter dissatisfaction with the economy and the state of the country.
特朗普惯称民调为“假的”，并偶尔威胁要采取行动配合其言论。“我一直在跟民调机构作斗争，”特朗普周二在一场集会上说。但如果特朗普意在遏制对民意的报道，他并未成功。
Trump has defaulted to calling the polls “fake” and has occasionally threatened to match his words with actions. “I’ve been fighting pollsters,” Trump said at a rally on Tuesday. But if Trump has intended to chill reporting on public opinion, he hasn’t succeeded.
上个月，爱荷华州一名法官驳回了总统起诉民调专家J·安·塞尔泽、其民调公司、《得梅因纪事报》和甘尼特公司的诉讼。特朗普法律团队的一名发言人誓言将提起上诉。
Last month, an Iowa judge dismissed the president’s lawsuit against pollster J. Ann Selzer, her polling company, the Des Moines and Gannett. A spokesperson for Trump’s legal team vowed to appeal.
周三，卡尔声称，本选举季出现了“大量完全虚假的民调和压制性民调，其目的无非是干扰选举进程的正常运作，改变选民投票率和热情的正常模式”。他说“许多记者和广播公司一直在放大或播报”这些民调，但他没有点名任何民调或人名。
On Wednesday, Carr claimed that this election season has brought “a significant surge in entirely Fake Polls and Suppression Polls designed to do nothing more than interfere with the regular functioning of the electoral process and alter the normal patterns of voter turnout and enthusiasm.”He said “many journalists and broadcasters have been amplifying or airing” the polls, though he didn’t name any polls or names.
随后，卡尔援引联邦通信委员会（FCC）惩罚违反该机构“新闻失实”和“骗局”政策的电台的权力，尽管这些政策界定狭窄，极少执行。
Carr then invoked the FCC’s power to penalize stations that violate the agency’s policies against “news distortion” and “hoaxes,” though those policies are narrowly tailored and rarely enforced.
他写道：“建议广播公司避免从事新闻失实或播发广播骗局，即播放会违反其监管义务的民调。”
“Broadcasters are advised to avoid engaging in News Distortions or running Broadcast Hoaxes by airing Polls that would violate their regulatory obligations,” he wrote.
联邦通信委员会唯一的民主党委员安娜·戈麦斯立即公开反对卡尔的声明。
Anna Gomez, the FCC’s lone Democratic commissioner, immediately spoke out against Carr’s message.
“故意误导公众的民调机构应当为此负责，但报道公开可得的民调数据的广播公司，在民调出错时绝不应受到惩罚，”戈麦斯在X平台上写道。“关于新闻歪曲或恶作剧的FCC规则，不适用于善意报道这些数据的电台。”斯特恩周三在一份声明中提出了类似观点。“新闻广播机构拥有第一修正案赋予的权利来报道民调数据，即使这些数据被证明不准确，就像它们拥有第一修正案赋予的权利来报道卡尔和特朗普自己的无数谎言和歪曲，即使那些被证明不准确一样，”他说。
“Pollsters who intentionally mislead the public should answer for it, but broadcasters who report publicly available polling data should never be punished when a poll is wrong,” Gomez wrote on X. “FCC rules on news distortion or hoaxes do not apply to a station that reports this data in good faith.”Stern made a similar point in a statement on Wednesday. “News broadcasters have a First Amendment right to report polling data, even if it proves to be inaccurate, just like they have a First Amendment right to report on Carr and Trump’s own countless lies and distortions, even when they turn out to be inaccurate,” he said.
卡尔抨击“假民调”，再次拥抱任命他的总统的言论——这位总统于2017年任命他，并于去年提升他为主席。
By inveighing against “fake polls,” Carr is once again embracing the rhetoric of the president who appointed him in 2017 and promoted him to chairman last year.
时机引人注目，因为中期选举距今不足两周，民调显示民主党在许多关键竞选中占优。
The timing is striking, since the midterm elections are less than two weeks away and polls show Democrats with an edge in many key races.
许多观众和读者怀疑民调的可靠性，现实是有些民调比其他的更值得信赖。
Many viewers and readers wonder about the reliability of polls, and the reality is that some are more trustworthy than others.
本周早些时候，民调追踪网站FiftyPlusOne对一个名为“Wedgewood Polls”的团体进行了调查，该团体发布了十多份选举季民调。
Earlier this week, the poll-tracking site FiftyPlusOne prepared an investigation into a group called “Wedgewood Polls,” which had released more than a dozen election-season polls.
FiftyPlusOne将该团体的数据纳入其民调平均值，但发现了造假证据。在民调追踪网站要求置评后，Wedgewood发表声明，声称这是一项实验，“旨在展示现代政治民调行业的脆弱性、缺乏监管以及总体上低门槛。”FiftyPlusOne联合创始人G.埃利奥特·莫里斯指责称，“他们试图用‘我们在做社会实验’的借口来掩盖他们的欺诈行为。”美国公共舆论研究协会周三谴责了这一造假行为。
FiftyPlusOne included the group’s data in its polling averages, but found evidence of fabrications. After the poll tracker asked for comment, Wedgewood issued a statement claiming it was an experiment “to demonstrate the vulnerabilities, lack of oversight, and overall low barrier to entry in the modern political polling industry.”FiftyPlusOne co-founder G. Elliott Morris charged that “they are trying to cover up their fraud with the ‘we were doing a social experiment’ excuse.”The American Association for Public Opinion Research condemned the fabrication on Wednesday.
“专业民调机构是透明、合乎道德的，并努力为公众和其他利益相关者提供关键信息。重要的是，我们不要将这种欺诈行为与合法的选举民调混为一谈，”该协会主席玛丽·洛施说。
“Professional polling organizations are transparent, ethical, and work hard to provide critical information to the public and other stakeholders. It is important that we don’t conflate fraudulent activity like this with legitimate election polling,” the association’s president Mary Losch said.
即使这只是一项实验，它也造成了实实在在的损害，正中那些想要播下不信任种子、甚至对最权威的民调来源也心存怀疑的公众人物的下怀。
Even if it was just an experiment, it did real damage, playing right into the hands of public figures who want to sow distrust in even the most authoritative polling sources.
“假新闻、假民调，全都是假的，”特朗普周二说。紧接着他又补充道，“我有一些很棒的民调。”
“Fake news, fake polls, they’re all fake,” Trump said Tuesday. He then added in the next breath, “I have some great polls.”