PressEthic

Unlike in previous years, Slate was unable to publish leaked exit poll information yesterday. Why? Because the consortium members from Associated Press, CBS, NBC, ABC, Fox and CNN who are responsible for analyzing the election data were apparently locked up in quarantined rooms for most of the afternoon, cell phones removed.

This didn’t go down very well with Slate's Jack Shafer, who has been fighting a war with the National Election Poll (previously known as Voter News Service) since 2000, when Slate received a threat to sue from VNS lawyers, preventing it from publishing any exit-poll numbers.

According to Shafer’s article in February 2000:

The VNS information cartel suppresses exit-poll data and waits until polls close to project winners because they fear members of Congress who say such news depresses voter turnout. (Take my word for it, there's no sound evidence that it does.)

What he doesn’t seem to consider is how else such pre-close leaks could affect the elections. If it was done widely enough, couldn't it potentially sway people’s vote on the day itself, thus interfering with the democratic process?

But Shafer argues:

If the American voter is mature enough to handle tracking polls the day before an election, he's mature enough to handle exit polls at 2 p.m. the day of an election.

Tracking polls, however, are not the real thing, and exit polls, well, are.

On the other hand, credit is due to Slate, whose main objective in publishing the information is as much to shed light on the media sham of election day, as to keep ahead of the news:

[W]hen Slate started publishing exit-poll numbers as we received them, our motivations were many. First, we wanted to expose the TV anchors and talking heads as actors--rotten actors--who feign ignorance about the election's direction. Most election-night coverage, down to the fancy spinning video effects and the high-tech sets, is pure theater. The real story is usually over by dinner time, and the networks know it. But--seeking to extend the cheap drama while not offending the government--they filibuster on.

Second, and most important, we wanted readers to know that the broadcasters suppress the news--the exit polls--out of fear of government retaliation. This self-censorship is the real fraud.

In 2004, Slate were free to publish the numbers as VNS no longer existed. But yesterday, the National Election Poll left Jack Shafer frustrated without leaks once again.