Electrons run amok in Massachusetts Senate race
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In the brave new electronic world that includes such morality movies as Avatar, it seems that anything is possible. Even declaring a winner in the Massachusetts Senate race before the polls closed.
Boston.com briefly put up a map of the Senate results, about eight hours before the polls actually closed, according to the enterprising reporters at the Boston Phoenix.
The post shows Martha Coakley with a narrow victory over Scott Brown.
Even before conspiracy theorists could flood media mailboxes with dark denunciations, the Globe apologized for the error, blaming a test of a wire service feed that inadvertently went live.
Such computer glitches have probably hit every newspaper website over the years.
But past media boo-boos over political outcomes predate today’s 24/7 news cycle. It was the Chicago Tribune that won a footnote in history with its 1948 front page that screamed “DEWEY DEFEATS TRUMAN.”
--Michael Muskal
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