Blogs gone wild?

A lively debate is brewing in the blogosphere over whether sites and Weblogs should be posting exit polls on primary days before voting closes.

For years now exit poll data has been available early-on, from Matt Drudge and Slate's Jack Shafer. CJR's new Campaign Desk blog has renewed the debate:

"Some readers have written in to suggest that since National Review's The Corner, and Political Wire, are blogs, rather than more traditional news outlets, and since they likely did not have contracts with the poll organizers, they're bound by different rules than, say, The Washington Post. By the standards of contract law, that may be true. But in terms of journalistic ethics, it's a copout. Once the numbers are out there, they're out there, and possibly influencing voters who haven't yet made it to the polls. And that the culprits are blogs, and not networks, doesn't let them off the hook."

Shafer jumped on Campaign Desk for a double-standard, since it linked to the sites with the data before the polls closed!

More debate:

Cynthia Cotts in the Village Voice

Here's an exchange between Markos Moulitsas of Daily Kos and Zachary Roth of Campaign Desk, sparked by Roth's criticism of bloggers who published early exit poll numbers

And lastly, an excellent overview from Jay Rosen on the entire debate

Feb 20, 2004 | E-MAIL | SAVE | PRINT | PERMALINK | DISCUSS(0)

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