Some in the mainstream media have latched onto the release of Election Day exit polls by weblogs (notably Wonkette), attempting to use the early release of what turned out to be misleading polls showing a Kerry surge as a cudgel with which to beat back the blogger barbarians at Old Media’s gate. This was to be expected: the media pattern is time-worn and familiar: build up the trend until it reaches a critical mass of hype, wait for the inevitable flaw or mistake to emerge, then pounce, and let the blacklash begin.

But in this case, the blow came too soon, and was too weak by far. The Old Media partisans who clamored for blogospheric heads chose the wrong ground for the battle, and have quickly sunk into the mud. When blogs took down CBS News for passing off bogus documents in a transparent attack on George Bush’s National Guard service, the story was simple, and readily grasped by anyone. CBS was negligent at best, dishonest at worst, and they passed off fake documents as real, deceiving their viewers. No need for a degree from Columbia’s J-school to understand why that was a Bad Thing.

In the case of the exit-polls counterstrike against blogs, though, Old Media finds itself attempting to explain why it is right and just for journalists to deliberately conceal information from their customers ---except, of course, for the broad hints liberally dropped by network anchors to those who pay close enough attention to notice (roughly defined as anyone a. conscious and b. watching the anchors at the time). Blogs,they say, did the public a disservice by --- well, by providing the information that the public wanted to know. The problem, of course, is that people will sometimes accept “we know things we won’t tell you and it’s for your own good” from their government, although increasingly grudgingly. The same line coming from the self-declared defenders of free speech and free information just doesn’t sell well. Rather than forming the basis of a solid offense against blogs, Old Media’s prattling on about the supposed evils of unprofessional bloggers leaking those dirty, dirty exit polls (paid for by Old Media, of course) came off as simply defensive.

The attacks have provided a service, however: they call into sharp contrast the differing approaches to handling information which blogs and Old Media provide. And this is very much a Good Thing. The major mistake that has been made by both Old Media journalists arguing against publishing the exit polls, and by bloggers arguing for their release, has been that many assume that there should be a single standard of Truth which is used by all media, everywhere. Some bloggers would say that the bar should be set low, and that information should be free; many traditional journalists disagree, and argue that rigorous fact-checking and verification is a necessity.

Both sides are right, and both sides are wrong. In the old information universe, media outlets were few and far between. In the beginning, a handful of daily newspapers might be the only possible source of information for any one person in any city; later, a few television stations would add to the diversity, but only slightly. In that scarce news environment, the priests of the few journalistic temples were right to insist on a high standard of accuracy: if they didn’t get it right, nobody would. The possible loss of immediacy for some stories, and the complete inability to tell others that might well be true but couldn’t be conclusively proven was balanced against the need to make the best possible use of the available space. When you’ve only got the limited bandwidth of a few pages of newsprint a day and an hour or so of network news time to deal with, it makes sense to ensure that everything that runs is for-sure true.

Blogs and other new media turn the logic of scarcity on its head. Now,there is no shortage of bandwidth: quite literally anyone can start a weblog and have a chance of their voice rising to be heard across the nation and the world. In the new media environment, it makes no sense for every single outlet to follow the same verification standards, whether high or low. The public interest is far better served by allowing the spectrum of standards to spread wide, and for people to be able to choose which outlet’s standards suit them best --- a calculation which will likely change not just from person to person, but from day to day,depending on what kind of information is being sought. (A person’s standards for celebrity gossip may well vary from their standards for foreign policy news, although which is higher might not necessarily turnout as you expect).

The benefits of a spectrum of standards come with one major caveat,however, and that is that every media outlet --- old and new, big and small --- should be clear about exactly where on the spectrum they lie. Publishing a story which isn’t fully confirmed is fine, as long as it is clearly marked as such. Bloggers need to hold up their end of the bargain here, and ensure that they are clearly label as rumor that which can’t be confirmed: which is exactly what Ana Marie Cox did at Wonkette when publishing the exit polls, declaring:

“…the little birdie is really skittish and not exactly trustworthy in all cases. Please vote, even if you live in PA. These could be total forgeries, designed to keep you from voting… Specific objections have been raised to the Minnesota numbers in particular. All with grains of salt. Huge tablespoons of salt.”

Other than simply publishing the poll numbers under a banner which screamed “PACK OF LIES”, what more could possibly be expected to warn readers that the information they were receiving had not been fact-checked to death and should be viewed as potentially suspect?

In the end, it is a happy coincidence that the evolution of a spectrum of standards is such a beneficial thing, because there’s frankly no way to avoid it anymore. The genie is out of the bottle, and we’ll likely never return to the golden days of media scarcity again. Even if it does make Old Media watchdogs uncomfortable, not every blogger is going to decide to hold to the same standards of fact-checking as CBS News, and there’s no way to make them.

And that’s a good thing in more ways than one.

Update: For an example of the Old Media misconception that bloggers should play by Old Media rules, see Mindy McAdams, a University of Florida journalism professor, in this CNN piece. And see Professor Bainbridge's response.