Do political researches, journalists, pundits and the like use sites like fluther to gague opinions?

It’s my bet that they don’t, because the use of this site wouldn’t be “scientific.”

To discover vox populi, one needs to do the research under carefully controlled conditions, so the results aren’t challenged by others.

Reporters aren’t scientific. They could use a site like this one, if they happened to know about it. But they’d know this is not really representative of the population. Perhaps a special segment of it. I heard a reporter on the radio this morning reporting on the reactions of folks in West Virginia. He had comments from a lawyer and someone else with a fairly decent job. Talk about representative! that’s sarcasm; I don’t know what his point was

Interesting idea. Maybe not the media, but we’re probably now on the FBI’s list of ppl to watch. Instigators, troublemakers,
ANARCISTS!

Sometimes—and they’ll say “a commenter Z on X site said Y”. But it is usually looked down upon and frowned upon. Then they take pot shots at each other for having done it.

I suspect that they use sites more like the ones below to track public opinion. There’s really no way of knowing what district anyone online is in and that is what is most important to them.

American Research Group
Zogby International
Rasmussen Reports

A handful of reporters, from NYTimes, HuffingtonPost, etc. have used fluther for anecdotal opinions and quotes. I doubt it would be useful for any statistics though.