espite all the primary day excitement, the streets of Manchester, N.H., seemed normal Tuesday with citizens casually going about their business. The scene was much different, however, at the Holiday Inn, where journalists were congregating like hungry locusts at a wheat field.
In that insular world - where gossip, speculation, and the occasional news tidbit are the legal tender - the afternoon buzz built to a crescendo. The exit polls showed John McCain on his way to a stunning win. Once reporters trade those numbers among themselves, there's a powerful urge to share them with the public. Yet, there is general agreement that news outlets should wait until the polls close before giving away the results, which means keeping the news to themselves for a few more hours.
Yesterday's New York Times and Washington Post documented the TV pundits and newsmen who walked the exit poll tightrope by hinting at the McCain romp without directly spilling the beans. But the on-line publication, Slate magazine (www.slate.com), proudly posted McCain's 19-point lead in the exit polls on Tuesday afternoon, announcing it had shattered the ''exit-poll taboo'' and proving that cyberspace has clearly emerged as journalism's newest ethical battleground.
''I'm in business to disseminate information, not to withhold it because somebody might use it `incorrectly' by staying home and not voting because their candidate has lost (or won),'' wrote Slate deputy editor Jack Shafer.
Mark Stencel, editor of the ''On Politics'' section of the Washington Post Web Site (www.washingtonpost.com), says that exit polls are tailor-made for cyberspace ''simply because on-line journalism craves data ... Whether it's exit polls or gossip, there seems to be a real debate going on in our business about the whole gatekeeping role the media plays. Even in the bottomless hole of the Internet, you have to make choices.''
''It has been true for ages that the moment the exit polls come out, almost everybody in the journalism world has those numbers,'' says Doug Bailey, founder of the new politics Web site www.freedomchannel.com. ''But it's inevitable in the on-line world, which doesn't follow all the accepted rules of journalism, that the new journalism says `go.'''
That certainly dovetails with Shafer's attitude. He views the exit poll embargo as a paternalistic charade, an acting job perpetrated by big media mandarins that deserves to be exposed.
''There was an elite that knew [the scope of McCain's victory], but somehow they felt they had to keep this information secret from the public,'' he scoffs. In the old media world, such gatekeeping practices might have succeeded, he says. But in the new world of dot coms and digital media, ''anybody can poach on anybody. It's sort of `dog eat dog' and `cat eat mouse' all over the media universe now.''
Few observers would argue that point, but some disagreed with Slate's decision to reveal the poll numbers. Among the responses posted on the Web zine's site yesterday was one message that states simply, ''you lack intregrity.'' Another accused Shafer of ''spouting the same arrogant line the media has used for years.''
Tom Rosenstiel, director of the Project for Excellence in Journalism, describes Shafer's argument that he is in the information dissemination business as ''the mechanistic approach: `I just tell the truth, I just pass along. I don't make decisions.'''
While perhaps trying to display its new media disdain for such traditions as the embargo, Rosenstiel argues that Slate fell into the old media's trap of justifying a controversial action with a knee-jerk response.
Underpinning this whole debate is the issue of whether withholding exit poll results serves a broader civic purpose by avoiding the possibility of influencing election day traffic.
''It really doesn't make a whole lot of difference,'' says Rosenstiel. ''The research shows that it actually does not impact turnout.'' Nevertheless, he remains convinced that the current embargo is probably a good idea, if only because the media don't need any more enemies.
''At a time when the public kind of hates us, why would we do things that would demonstrate a kind of arrogance toward the civic procedures,'' that journalism should support? he asks. ''Even if the research can't definitively prove we're hurting democracy, the burden of proof should be on us.''
Craig Crawford, editor of the Hotline political newsletter, echoes the same sentiments. ''The only virtue [of the embargo] is not influencing the electorate,'' he says. ''It's hard to see evidence that that's significant, but [breaking the embargo] seems wrong. I would never do it. I think it's uncool. I really do think this is something we should keep sacred.''
One of the powerful impulses in much of the burgeoning on-line world is that nothing is sacred. That's what Slate decided Tuesday, cockily challenging the traditional media to do something about it.
