Anyone Get an Email re: A Wall St Journal Survey?

[Bailey Guns]

I got an email today that said it was from a reporter for the WSJ. Went on to say they were working on an article or series of articles on various gun issues, including the proposed "bump-stock" ban. The email requested I click a link to take a survey.

Naturally I'm skeptical so I did some checking and it was legit.

I clicked the link and was taken to a survey that actually included a paragraph I had written in my comments on the ATF website regarding the bump-stock ban. They asked for a contact name/email/number which they already had (not the phone number, but they did have my name and email). Pretty generic survey. I'm curious what their angle will be.

Anyone else get this email?

76389



https://ci6.googleusercontent.com/proxy/U_fvcdQmSP3TpjrW53HyES_Um2xEUNc-HFr4XkZLJXH9RKBdXB8rQNwC8bBEsp-1vAVAxpIFclHn4Mq1FxWJTAFV1jt6oD5FTbsuQNTmkk9nvWtMx aNWP6_CvpR1ZkGGCQ=s0-d-e1-ft#http://i1.cmail20.com/ti/d/03/95D/869/004054/csimport/header-logo-wsj_0.jpg









The Wall Street Journal has been writing stories about various regulatory proposals and is preparing a story about a rule pending at the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms at the U.S. Justice Department.
We are working with a national public research firm to help us collect information using an online survey format that should take you less than 5 minutes to complete.
Your identity, including your name and email address, will be kept confidential unless you indicate otherwise. Your answers will only be used in potential news stories when combined with other participants. At the end of the questionnaire, you will be asked if you are willing to be contacted by a reporter for The Wall Street Journal to discuss your answers further or use your name with a story.
To help us, click here, which will take you to the survey, being conducted for The Wall Street Journal by Mercury Analytics, a national public opinion research firm. Alternatively, you can go to this web address,
http://www.masurveys.com/wsj_2763?ID=3297066549
Thank you very much.
James V. Grimaldi
Senior Writer
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
O: +1 202 862-6665
E: james.grimaldi@wsj.com

[drew890]

Nope.

[Blowby]

Nope.

I guess I'm under the radar....

[BushMasterBoy]

wsj IS A SJW! dont let the name fool you

[ChickNorris]

Trickery

[BladesNBarrels]

Comments on government actions are public information.
Looks like the reporter is at least following up on some background info.
Whether it is used, misquoted and attributed to you, or ignored is part of the process.
Used to get it whenever I wrote comments concerning proposed Oil and Gas Regulations with the BLM (Bureau of Land Management - long before the initials were used for political purposes)

[Justin]

Assuming it's legit, I would assume it's a reporter going through the ATF comments and sending out requests. It's completely possible that they created a script to scrape the contact info from comments submitted and then blast out the link to all of the commenters to take the survey and measure the response rates.

There have been a number of news stories in the tech press about comments submitted to the FCC re: Net Neutrality being fake or autogenerated. I would expect a story along the same lines about how all of the pro-gun comments are from bots would probably get a lot of traction in the MSM.

[Gman]

Interesting. I got one too.

[Justin]

FWIW, James V. Grimaldi does appear to be a WSJ reporter:

https://twitter.com/JamesVGrimaldi?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Es erp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor

[Bailey Guns]

Yeah, it's a real email. Some discussion of it on other boards. (Other gun boards??? I know, I know....this is the only one that matters.)

[Gman]

I'm hesitant to respond. Is it just picking options type of survey or is it question & answer?

If it's the latter, I can just see them taking 3 words of my response to make me look like more of a nut than I'm already willing to admit to.

[Bailey Guns]

There were very few questions and the answers were all "strongly agree, strongly disagree", etc... Took all of about 2 mins. I figured I don't get to express my opinion too often to a large audience so, if I get the chance, I'm gonna do it. I'm assuming if a reporter contacts me it will be to talk about the upcoming bump-stock ban.

[Gman]

It's funny that they have most of my quote from the comments, and then ask if I;
Strongly Agree
Somewhat Agree
Somewhat Disagree
Strongly Disagree

...with my own damn statement. Do they think I'm confused?

Interesting that they wanted to know if I made the statement, if my name was the name associated with the statement, and if I had made the statement on my own or authorized it on my behalf.

Are they looking to see if the info was submitted by proxy or some method of automation?

They finished it with this statement, even though I selected that I didn't want to be contacted by a reporter:

Thank you very much for participating in this survey and your wilingness to allow a reporter for The Wall Street Journal to contact you.

[Justin]

I seriously doubt that asking you to rate your own comments is the story he's after. As I already stated, he's probably trying to gin up a story about the comments being stuffed with auto-generated messages and/or tied to people who never took the survey. Failure to respond, or failure to rank your own comments as "strongly agree" will probably be used as "evidence" that the comment was submitted without the knowledge or approval of the person who is tied to the comment.

Something similar is an ongoing, minor kerfuffle regarding the Net Neutrality debates, and, oh, gee whiz, look, at that, it turns out that the reporter who's covered that topic for the WSJ is the same one who's researching the story about comments submitted regarding a ban on bump stocks:

https://www.wsj.com/articles/new-york-attorney-general-probes-fake-comments-on-net-neutrality-1539729977

What a co-inky-dink.

[BladesNBarrels]

A lot of organizations that are requesting their members to comment use a form letter to submit.
If I comment, I use their form for talking points, and write my own comments - usually shorter and less in-depth.
I always tried to add costs involved, because that is one of the most important factors in making a decision.

[DOC]

I got 2 one for each email I submitted my message under. I took the survey and was truthful on the first survey and not so much on the second one. It did seem legit. I guess I will wait and see if they do any follow up or offer me a TV show for 50 million a year based on my comments?