Having done a fair share of market research in my career as well as being fairly knowledgable in survey processing software, I can tell you that it's all in how you ask the questions. Someone who knows experimental design and survey construction can build a survey to 'prove' any point you want proven, and if the explicit intent is missed, you can always weave in enough inuendo to inflame the emotions (e.g. have you stopped beating your wife?) a la HCI, VPC, or the DNC.
OTOH, if the 'news' media was actually interested in doing legitimate research and finding real answers, they would use surveys done by real sociologists/psychologists presented to a statistically valid sample properly analyized and subject to peer review. But that takes time, planning, forethought and integrity, so they instead use a bunch of half-assed questions thrown together by 'enquiring minds' and present it as 'fact', which they then hype to get the emotional impact necessary to sell papers/magazines/air time. Since no one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence (or attention span) of the American public, it seems to work just fine.
Since the sheeple neither think or question, this sorta explains why/how Rosie, Sally Jesse, Jenny, Geraldo, Springer and the rest can get paid too much money to provide public displays of ignorance and worse (interesting aside, if you 'analyze' who sponsors those shows, you can conclude that most of the audience is overweight, litigeous and believes in the paranormal {psychic friends) - see how easy it is to do a 'survey'!?!)
Sorry to be ranting at the choir, it's been a rough week and I'm ready for the weekend. Everybody have a nice one, maybe do some mindless acts of kindness for family & friends.
Best regards, M2
