The Media & Elections

It amazes me how the media handles elections. What's up with the projected winners nonsense? Don't they remember 8 years ago when they messed up? You would think they had learned. (Although messing up once every 8 years or more is a pretty good track record...but I just wanna complain!) I guess they have to find some way to keep people interested in this "on-the-go" world we live in. I remember being young and watching election returns...they wouldn't project a winner until after a large percentage of ballots were counted. Now I have seen the "winner" called at 10% of precincts reporting! Also, they project a winner when 50% of precincts reporting and only a 2% difference between the candidates. Ridiculous!

Also, it's crazy on how much the creation of 24-hour news has affected the news itself. Things are repeated and they just talk and talk with no substance. Plus it seems everyone's an expert. And then there's Fox News...I wonder when someone decided it would be cool to start inventing the news.

Short attention span but 24-hour access to news is a wacky combination.

Update: After seeing that Obama is the projected winner in Maryland on CNN.com with 0% precincts reporting, I had to investigate how they does these silly projections. Here's the link explaining it:

http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/01/02/projection.explainer/index.html

And I thought that exit polls were notorious for being statistically inaccurate...