Such a policy violates the whole ethos of blogging. Conventional wisdom suggests that if exit polls show one candidate winning, voters will decide to stay home. The leaks by the bloggers contravened the wishes of the networks, which keep their official polling data secret until states have closed their polls. “4:41 p.m.: Bush only up by one in Virginia? I feel like I’m taking crazy pills!īy night, Wonkette adopted a sheepish tone. The networks rescinded that call and waited weeks to make a final call before Florida was officially placed in the Bush column.īy late last night, it appeared the blogs predicting a Kerry landslide were the ones to blow the call, in the rush to be first.Īn ecstatic afternoon report from Wonkette said in part: ![]() That year the networks twice prematurely declared a winner in Florida – first awarding it to Vice President Gore and then reversing the call, declaring President Bush the winner. Rather than making calls on the likely winner, the anchors spent the time discussing how many lawsuits the elections could trigger, when a final count would be decided, and what preparations they had made to prevent mistakes made in 2000. Rather will cover as anchor, and with NBC’s Tom Brokaw soon to retire, the anchors’ swan song was an exercise in restraint. With this likely to be the last presidential election that Mr. Rather put a new spin on his mantra when revealing results for Missouri: “The Show Me State, show me ‘insufficient data.'” If not we just simply say we don’t know.”‘Īfter repeatedly using the phrase “insufficient data” to describe the lack of polling data, Mr. “If we feel a state will go in one direction or another we tell you that. “We’re being very conservative here,” the CBS anchor, Dan Rather, said on the air after most polling sites had closed last night. CBS said it wouldn’t declare a winner or loser in any state, cautiously saying it would only “estimate” a winner. Fox had four executives on its decision desk and promised not to “call” a state unless all four agreed. NBC quarantined its experts who were making calls on winners and losers in a room without TV sets, so they couldn’t see their rivals. Pundits relied upon phrases such as “estimate” and “apparent winner” and peppered their reporting by declaring that a couple of minutes was always worth the wait to get the story right. In an attempt to avoid a rerun of the 2000 election, however, all the networks not only created a new vote-projecting consortium, the National Election Pool, but they also made a variety of superficial changes. That bloggers were releasing exit-poll data early “means nothing” for the networks, a spokeswoman for NBC News, Barbara Levin, wrote in an e-mail to the Sun. Television news executives did not appear, however, to be trembling from the threat. Denton told The New York Sun he thinks this is the last national election in which the networks will try to withhold the results of exit polls. To the publisher of Gawker Media, Nick Denton, the traffic presaged a change in the way election results and exit polls are reported. ![]() While the networks were still showing soap operas, everyone in control of a Web site, from Slate’s Jack Shafer to Wonkette’s Ana Marie Cox, seemed to be publishing exit-poll figures – the attribution was generally absent, as was any indication of the purported methodology – reporting a victory for Mr. ![]() Kerry with more than 300 electoral votes, a virtual landslide.Īcross New York and the country, hundreds of thousands of blog readers tracked the election from their computer terminals, at work or at school or at home. By 5 p.m., Wonkette was calling Iowa for Mr. yesterday, Internet pundits had made their faulty call: Kerry in a landslide.Įvery time the political gossip blog posted new exit-poll figures, the numbers seemed to show a new lead for Senator Kerry. Meanwhile the television networks, in an attempt to avoid a rerun of the 2000 Gore wins embarrassment, bided their time, talking for hours into the evening about anything but the winner.īy 3 p.m. In the race to be first to report the winner of this year’s election, the blogs called the election before any polling sites closed – and botched it.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Details
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |