Too Much Buzz on the Blogs: The bloggers blew it. Hours before the polls closed on Nov. 2, the online diaries known as Web logs began circulating early exit polls that showed Senator John Kerry was on the cusp of a big victory over President Bush.
Blogs Blamed for Exit Poll Fiasco: 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.
Bloggers Let Poll Cat Out of the Bag: The willingness of the individuals who run the Internet sites, known as blogs, to post the data as soon as they could obtain them -- by whatever means -- gave them a leg up on the nation's mainstream news organizations, which were bound by their own restrictions on disseminating exit-poll information. But the uncertain outcome of the election late into the night underscored how the high-profile new medium could ultimately prove vulnerable to the same gaffes that bedeviled the mainstream media four years ago.
