Better then polls?

After many, many months of campaigns, debates, and TV commercials we will finally find out who the President of the United States will be until 2016. The race is winding down, however the big day is on Tuesday when we find out which candidate took what state. For the past month something constantly that has been on CNN’s homepage is the potential electoral college map for 2012. The map shows each state in either blue indicating will go to democrats or red indicating it will go to republicans.  CNN using polls and experts have predicted who they think will win which state. So far they have President Obama leading with 237 electoral votes over Romney with 206. The most interesting part of this map however is the “swing” states of Ohio, Florida, Colorado, and Iowa. A swing state is a state that electoral votes go could either way in any presidential election. CNN also offers their readers to click and predicate how they think each state will go. This interactive way for readers to visually see who they think will win is much different then other news sources ways of just showing polls.

I think CNNs way of using this interactive map is much more effective then just using polls. We have also discussed in class how polls can often be misleading and just a way for news corporations to make more money. It can also be a way for them to make the election seem more interesting then it actually is. Finally, what does this say about America’s new sources. What do you think? Do the citizens of America only want to hear what they want?