Internet "blogs" ended up with egg on their face this week after releasing early exit-poll data from Tuesday's vote suggesting Senator John Kerry was on his way to a victory against US President George W. Bush.
Blogs, short for Web logs, became a major phenomenon in this year's campaign. But the mistakes, while not of the magnitude of the 2000 election fiasco, opened a debate over the credibility of the sites and of the exit polls being used.
Although the preliminary exit poll data were not widely used by television networks and other mainstream media, the misleading news spread like wildfire and even prompted a selloff late in the day on Tuesday on Wall Street when it appeared Bush was in trouble.
One news site distributing the early poll data, the Drudge Report, attracted 978,000 hits on Tuesday, and several other blogs collectively attracted more than a half a million visitors, according to comScore Networks.
"People jumped the gun and started interpreting the poll data before it had been completed," said Michael Cornfield, a senior research consultant at the Pew Internet and American Life Project.
"There's a game in Washington -- you feel like an insider if you get the early data and distribute it, and I did myself ... I've been writing e-mail notes all morning apologizing," he said.
But Cornfield said the release did not have the same impact as the mistaken call of Florida in the 2000 election.
"When it goes through television networks, it acquires the authority the bloggers don't have," he said. "It also affects people who are voting ... if a network calls a state [there is the feeling that] it's over."
Still, there was no doubt about the impact of the blogs.
"The thing about blogs, of course, is that a hot story tends to spread exponentially, so by early evening, the early exit-poll results were all over the blogosphere," said Steve Outing, a senior editor at the Poynter Institute for Media Studies.
"Bloggers, in particular, are loose cannons when it comes to information that established media seeks to control. Mostly independents with no corporate masters to abide -- and often no traditional journalistic training or standards -- bloggers cannot be expected to play by old media rules," Outing said in a Web column.
Cornfield said he believes the exit-poll data -- a pool effort of the major media -- was generally accurate but only after late-day voters were included.
Still, bloggers and others posting messages on blogs were smarting and trying to find an explanation, with some suggesting manipulation of electronic voting systems.
"Analysis of the polling data versus actual data and voting systems supports the hypothesis that e-voting may be to blame in the discrepancies," said one Web poster, identified only as "SoCalDemocrat."
"Nevada has e-voting but with verified receipts. In that state the exit polling matches the actual results within 0.1 percent accuracy. However for other swing states Bush has unexplainable leads."
"Notice, if you will, that states with a narrow or wide Bush margin of victory NOT called Ohio or Florida, project perfectly," said another Web poster, London Yank. "It is a clear and blatant sign of voter fraud."
Cornfield said that he did not believe the outcome of the vote had been influenced by the early release or by fraud.
"I'm willing to believe there was a level of fraud in Ohio and Florida, and so did the Kerry campaign," Cornfield said. "But they did their arithmetic, and if there was fraud it was not enough to change the results."
‘TAIWAN-FRIENDLY’: The last time the Web site fact sheet removed the lines on the US not supporting Taiwanese independence was during the Biden administration in 2022 The US Department of State has removed a statement on its Web site that it does not support Taiwanese independence, among changes that the Taiwanese government praised yesterday as supporting Taiwan. The Taiwan-US relations fact sheet, produced by the department’s Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs, previously stated that the US opposes “any unilateral changes to the status quo from either side; we do not support Taiwan independence; and we expect cross-strait differences to be resolved by peaceful means.” In the updated version published on Thursday, the line stating that the US does not support Taiwanese independence had been removed. The updated
‘CORRECT IDENTIFICATION’: Beginning in May, Taiwanese married to Japanese can register their home country as Taiwan in their spouse’s family record, ‘Nikkei Asia’ said The government yesterday thanked Japan for revising rules that would allow Taiwanese nationals married to Japanese citizens to list their home country as “Taiwan” in the official family record database. At present, Taiwanese have to select “China.” Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) said the new rule, set to be implemented in May, would now “correctly” identify Taiwanese in Japan and help protect their rights, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement. The statement was released after Nikkei Asia reported the new policy earlier yesterday. The name and nationality of a non-Japanese person marrying a Japanese national is added to the
AT RISK: The council reiterated that people should seriously consider the necessity of visiting China, after Beijing passed 22 guidelines to punish ‘die-hard’ separatists The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) has since Jan. 1 last year received 65 petitions regarding Taiwanese who were interrogated or detained in China, MAC Minister Chiu Chui-cheng (邱垂正) said yesterday. Fifty-two either went missing or had their personal freedoms restricted, with some put in criminal detention, while 13 were interrogated and temporarily detained, he said in a radio interview. On June 21 last year, China announced 22 guidelines to punish “die-hard Taiwanese independence separatists,” allowing Chinese courts to try people in absentia. The guidelines are uncivilized and inhumane, allowing Beijing to seize assets and issue the death penalty, with no regard for potential
‘UNITED FRONT’ FRONTS: Barring contact with Huaqiao and Jinan universities is needed to stop China targeting Taiwanese students, the education minister said Taiwan has blacklisted two Chinese universities from conducting academic exchange programs in the nation after reports that the institutes are arms of Beijing’s United Front Work Department, Minister of Education Cheng Ying-yao (鄭英耀) said in an exclusive interview with the Chinese-language Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ sister paper) published yesterday. China’s Huaqiao University in Xiamen and Quanzhou, as well as Jinan University in Guangzhou, which have 600 and 1,500 Taiwanese on their rolls respectively, are under direct control of the Chinese government’s political warfare branch, Cheng said, citing reports by national security officials. A comprehensive ban on Taiwanese institutions collaborating or
RSS