The media should avoid early election polls

THE MEDIA SHOULD AVOID EARLY ELECTION POLLS
[SOURCE: Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting]
While it certainly feels like the presidential election cycle has started earlier than ever, a more important issue is what sort of coverage of the process the media are providing citizens. Much of what voters are seeing is reporting and analysis of early polls, which show Rudolph Giuliani with a wide lead over his Republican counterparts, and senators Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama leading the Democratic field. But if history is any guide, the polls are a complete waste of time. The press attention to these early polls can amount to a sort of self-fulfilling prophecy: Polls are primarily measuring name recognition, so high-profile candidates tend to do better. "Winning" the polls encourages more media attention, much of it about how a given candidate is maintaining their lead. When actual voters intervene in the process, however, the front-runners often become also-rans. More importantly, early polls function as a way of giving media an excuse to ignore candidates -- often the majority of candidates -- who are deemed outsiders undeserving of media attention. While reporters seem aware of the problems with overplaying these early polls, it's not clear that this awareness has any effect on their coverage.
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