Sam Wang (Princeton) sums it up in just a few paragraphs re media reporting vs reality -

[NRaleighLiberal]

http://election.princeton.edu/perverse-media-incentives-cillizza-2nov2012.php

"Today, the Washington Post's Chris Cillizza has moved Ohio from "lean Obama" to "tossup." Yet the current margin in Ohio is Obama +3.0+/-0.5% (n=14 polls, Oct. 13-Nov. 1) and probably insuperable. What could be Cillizza's reason?

He writes: "...the absolute necessity for Romney to win the state if he wants to be president - leads us to move it back to the 'tossup' category." Now here is some problematic reasoning. Romney needs Ohio, so therefore it's a toss-up. Ah yes, the "let's not bicker about who killed who" argument.

Cillizza is hardly alone. A few days ago, Wolf Blitzer at CNN cited a single Ohio poll, done by his own organization, showing Obama up by 4%. He then proceeded to call this a "tie," revealing an amazing inability to interpret a simple number. Compounding this is the fact that dozens of polls have been conducted in Ohio. The odds of an Obama lead are extremely high. So why does he persist?

The news media have an incentive to fuzz up the picture: ratings and profit. A message that the cake is fully baked does not automatically bring back the viewers. Without the artificial suspense, Cillizza and Blitzer are put in a position of having to say something substantive or interesting that gets beyond a horserace number. Think how much work that would be"

snip

[reflection]

1. The emergence of fact-based number crunchers,

and the way they are confounding the media, is one of the few bright spots in this election. If Obama prevails and the reality mirrors their models, I expect some deference will be given to them next time. Right now it's a turf war between nerds and blow-dry hairdos and it is great fun to watch.

[barbtries]

2. thanks for posting this.

i try not to pay attention to the polls. too stressful. but this guy's poll, i like. didn't he have obama with a 99% chance of winning by one method yesterday?

[FSogol]

3. ROFL at Wolf Blitzer's "amazing inability to interpret a simple number"