Annenberg Public Policy Center works with NBC and Wall Street Journal

The Annenberg Public Policy Center is joining forces with media organizations for the first time as it surveys the American public during the 2014 election season.

The Center will work with NBC News and the Wall Street Journal on its survey project, which is intended to increase public and lawmaker awareness of the opinions of American citizens during the 2014 election season.

An independent branch of the Annenberg School for Communication, the Center was created to help generate a better understanding of the role of media in public knowledge and opinions on public policy issues. The survey project is a subset of a larger project — the Institutions of American Democracy —which collects information about various governmental bodies and the challenges that they currently face. 

“These surveys will help to gain a deeper understanding of what Americans think about how well their government is working,” Director of the Annenberg Public Policy Center Kathleen Hall Jamieson said in a press release.

The survey, which will target 1300 to 1400 voters each week, uses telephone calls to gather information at a time when Americans are divided in their views and beliefs.

NBC News and the Wall Street Journal will gradually release polled information on attitudes towards current issues, ranging from public schools to government policies.

Pollsters also hope to collect more general information regarding the attitudes of Americans towards Congress in order to monitor upcoming trends. As stated in a press release, "Half of American voters said the results of the midterm Congressional elections won’t affect the economy."

The polls have also yielded other interesting results. For example, 42 percent of polled Americans found Bill Clinton to be the most admired president in the last 25 years.

Current President Barack Obama came in second with 18 percent of the vote, despite low satisfaction rates in various national polls over the last several years.

The poll also revealed that 71 percent of Americans do not support United States involvement in Iraq. 

Fifty two percent of polled citizens desire to see less of Sarah Palin in the media. Of this 52 percent, two out of every five people polled identified as Republicans. Other unfavorable figures included Dick Cheney and Jesse Jackson.

A previous version of this article incorrectly referred to the Annenberg Public Policy Center as the Annenberg Center for Public Policy. Also, this article stated that the Center is housed in the Annenberg School for Communication. It is actually a separate center of the school, with its own building, staff and director. Additionally, a previous version referred to the Institute of American Democracy, but the initiative is in fact called Institutions of American Democracy. The DP regrets the errors.

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