Media whore alert — ABC edition!!
I may (or may not) be on ABC World News Tonight this evening. The story is about the merits of releasing exit poll information to the public the day of the election. My mantra: the democratization of information is a good thing, but exit polls should be treated like cigarettes — warning labels like this ...
I may (or may not) be on ABC World News Tonight this evening. The story is about the merits of releasing exit poll information to the public the day of the election. My mantra: the democratization of information is a good thing, but exit polls should be treated like cigarettes -- warning labels like this one are appropriate. Mystery Pollster Mark Blumenthal may or may not be in the segment as well. I recommended him -- and he's already got his talking points. They say I'll be on, but given what happened last time, I'll believe it when I see it -- three months from now. If I go on, readers may get the extra-special bonus of seeing my patented one-fingered typing style. That's what I was doing when they shot the b-roll -- you know the "action" footage of an interviewee as you hear, "Daniel Drezner, assistant professor..." on the voiceover. UPDATE: Alas, no b-roll, but they did use an excerpt. Note that when I'm interviewed as a blogger, I dress more casually. One thing that bugged me about the closing of the piece was the assertion that Internet content providers somehow did something "wrong" in posting the exit polls. None of the sources I looked at posted wrong numbers -- the flaws lay in the exit polls themselves. Furthermore, none of those who posted them said anything remotely close to, "with these exit polls, we're calling the election for Kerry." See Kevin Drum and Mark Blumenthal here and here for more on this. LAST UPDATE: Wow, this is a first -- after reading this post, someone from ABC World News Tonight just called to apologize for the last sentence in the story (it was put in there at the last minute).
I may (or may not) be on ABC World News Tonight this evening. The story is about the merits of releasing exit poll information to the public the day of the election. My mantra: the democratization of information is a good thing, but exit polls should be treated like cigarettes — warning labels like this one are appropriate. Mystery Pollster Mark Blumenthal may or may not be in the segment as well. I recommended him — and he’s already got his talking points. They say I’ll be on, but given what happened last time, I’ll believe it when I see it — three months from now. If I go on, readers may get the extra-special bonus of seeing my patented one-fingered typing style. That’s what I was doing when they shot the b-roll — you know the “action” footage of an interviewee as you hear, “Daniel Drezner, assistant professor…” on the voiceover. UPDATE: Alas, no b-roll, but they did use an excerpt. Note that when I’m interviewed as a blogger, I dress more casually. One thing that bugged me about the closing of the piece was the assertion that Internet content providers somehow did something “wrong” in posting the exit polls. None of the sources I looked at posted wrong numbers — the flaws lay in the exit polls themselves. Furthermore, none of those who posted them said anything remotely close to, “with these exit polls, we’re calling the election for Kerry.” See Kevin Drum and Mark Blumenthal here and here for more on this. LAST UPDATE: Wow, this is a first — after reading this post, someone from ABC World News Tonight just called to apologize for the last sentence in the story (it was put in there at the last minute).
Daniel W. Drezner is a professor of international politics at the Fletcher School at Tufts University and the author of The Ideas Industry. Twitter: @dandrezner
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