Shlomo Filber reveals the polling coordination - and how Channel 14 was left out

Shlomo Filber, co-owner of Direct Polls, claims that about four years ago, hours before the election polls were published, Channel 14 was offered to join the 'pollsters' cartel' in exchange for a joint appearance on screen. He calls it 'an offer you can't refuse' and claims that pollsters align to avoid anomalous results. Filber compared their work to intelligence analysis before October 7.

Shlomo Filber, co-owner of the research company 'Direct Polls' and former Director General of the Ministry of Communications, claimed in an interview with Yaara Zard that about four years ago, just hours before the publication of the election polls, a phone call was received in the studio offering them 'an offer you can't refuse' - to join the coordination among pollsters, and in return to appear together with them on screen. Filber called the move a 'cartel of pollsters' and claimed that the coordination is not limited to polls published during the election campaign. He explained that pollsters seek to avoid a different result that would require them to provide explanations: 'No one wants to be an outlier, no one wants to be exceptional, no one wants to give explanations. So they always align with each other.' To illustrate his claim, Filber compared the work of pollsters to the way intelligence analysis was conducted before October 7, claiming that NCO V was not exposed to different or unique information, but to the same data that stood before the largest and most sophisticated systems in Israel: 'All the geniuses of Aman analyzed X and she analyzed Y, and in the end we know who was right,' and added: 'We all see the same signals. The question is how each one interpreted them.'