In Picking The Victors, Media Get Another Drubbing

The urge to forecast political outcomes is not unlike a gambling addiction, with a record that would bankrupt most Vegas high rollers. Bill Clinton's 1992 campaign compiled a video of all the pundits who had written him off. In the fall of 2000, Slate's William Saletan said candidate George W. Bush was "toast" (the preferred food item for predictions of political death). In late 2003, some columnists urged John Kerry to withdraw to spare himself a humiliating defeat by Howard Dean.

"When you have a campaign-in-disarray story, that is one of the juiciest stories in presidential politics," says Tad Devine, who was a senior strategist for Kerry and Gore. "Everyone is intoxicated by that. It's a tremendous distraction for a campaign, but voters could care less."

There is little sign that this behavior is going to change. No newspaper will run a correction saying, "The Daily Blab incorrectly reported in July that Sen. John McCain's campaign lacked a pulse, despite an absence of medical evidence." No anchor will read a statement saying, "We regret our unseemly rush to judgment about Hillary Clinton's chances." The news business corrects inaccurate titles and mangled quotes, but rarely overheated reporting.

After the 2000 election fiasco, the networks grew more careful about calling races based on exit polls. But such caution did not extend to pre-election speculation.

Marty Kaplan, a journalism professor at the University of Southern California, wrote on the Huffington Post that the mainstream media had been humiliated and that this "could be the MSM's Katrina. Political media, you've done a heckuva job."

Brokaw, who became NBC's anchor at the dawn of the cable era, says his colleagues must be wary of the demands of modern technology.

"This is the age-old curse of pack journalism," Brokaw says. "These conversations that used to be held in the bar late at night, about who's going to win or lose, now play out on the air because there's so much time to fill."