Media scratching heads, pointing fingers at faulty exit polls

NEW YORK — News organizations promised Wednesday to look into why their Election Day exit polls showed an initial surge for John Kerry, but also blamed bloggers for spreading news that gave a misleading view of the presidential race.

The exit poll data was delivered at several points Tuesday to ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, Fox News Channel and The Associated Press by the National Election Pool, a company formed in the wake of the networks' blown calls on election night 2000.

The first wave showed Kerry with a lead of three percentage points in Florida and four points in Ohio — both battleground states won by President Bush when the votes were actually counted, giving the president his margin of victory.

"Once one part of it is in question and is wrong, it kind of puts the whole thing in question," said Marty Ryan of Fox News. "It was disappointing. . . . During the primary season, it worked very well for us, we were happy with it. But that was not good last night."

Other network represen- tatives said their confidence in NEP remained unshaken.

The Florida and Ohio exit poll results, along with those in other states where Kerry was strong, was quickly disseminated on Web sites such as Slate, the Drudge Report, Wonkette.com, Atrios.blogspot.com and Command Post.

Some of these sites cautioned readers not to make too much of the information. The Command Post delivered the news under the headline "Grain of Salt." Drudge removed the numbers almost as quickly as they were posted. And Slate warned: "these early exit poll numbers do not divine the name of the winner."

"I didn't have any real compunction about putting it up there," said Alan Nelson, co-manager of The Command Post. "Our approach is: We post, you decide," Nelson said.

But the people who read these numbers — among them, thousands of ordinary Americans with an intense interest in the election — put too much faith into them and leaped to conclusions, said Bill Schneider, CNN's polling expert.

"I think people believed them, and it's particularly the case with Internet bloggers," said Kathy Frankovic, CBS News' polling director. Fox News Channel correspondents bluntly addressed the polls early on election night, at about the time Bush campaign officials were alerting reporters that their analysis of the actual vote count showed they were doing better than the exit polls indicated.