Sankei Shimbun Poll Manipulated for Over a Year... Sankei "Deeply Apologizes"

Sankei Shimbun, Japan [Image source=Yonhap News]

[Asia Economy Reporter Kim Hyung-min] It has been revealed that the public opinion survey results by Japan's Sankei Shimbun were manipulated for about a year, causing controversy.

Sankei Shimbun announced on the 19th that the public opinion survey jointly conducted by Sankei Shimbun and Fuji News Network (FNN) was manipulated by an employee of the partner company responsible for the survey.

According to this, it was found that numerous fabricated responses were entered in 14 telephone surveys conducted over the course of one year starting from May last year.

The surveys were conducted each time on about 1,000 men and women aged 18 and over, and it was confirmed that an employee working at the call center of the company responsible for about half of these repeatedly entered results as if responses had been received without actually making calls.

Among approximately 500 survey cases handled by this company each time, several hundred fabricated responses were entered.

As a result, about 17% of the entire public opinion survey content was filled with fraudulent responses.

The employee who caused the problem reportedly explained that it was difficult to secure personnel to conduct the surveys when entering false answers.

Sankei Shimbun stated, "We cancel all articles reporting the results of the total 14 public opinion surveys found to be fraudulent this time. We deeply apologize to our readers for providing incorrect information in the important role of public opinion survey reporting as a news organization."

They added, "Public opinion survey results are important social indicators such as support rates for political parties or administrations and approval or disapproval ratios for significant policies, and they influence readers' various judgments and actions. We regard the inclusion of fraudulent data in these results as a very serious matter."

Sankei and FNN have decided to suspend public opinion surveys for the time being until they verify this incident and confirm and implement accurate survey methods.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.