If all newsrooms have one thing in common, it’s this: worrying about whether the next day will be a “slow” or “fast” news day, and if it’s slow, what will you print or air?
Well, The Rocky Mountain News and CBS 4 have definitely come up with a solution to help manage the news cycle.
Notice a poll-results story published on Saturday, October 24, showing Obama leading McCain among Colorado voters. Monday, October 27th, another poll story about Amendment 58 being too close to call. Today, yet another poll story, Tuesday the 28th, about Amendment 48 being crushed by a 40+ point margin.
Clearly, the Rocky and CBS4 aren’t conducting a new poll each and every day. They conducted one poll, and had all of these results in their pocket, probably by Friday the 24th.
But the way they are dribbling these results out like water torture raises at least a couple of ethical questions. Are your poll results on the 24th still “valid” if you publish those results one week later? And how do you decide the order of what is published when, and does the newsroom debate whether or not the timing of an INDIVIDUAL RESULT story has the ability to affect the election?
