Volatility complicates the task

At 8 last night, when New Hampshire's polls had just closed, CBS anchor Dan Rather said the network could not call a winner in that state's critical primary. Fifteen minutes later, CNN's Wolf Blitzer told viewers the contest was "much closer than we expected," with Senator John F. Kerry of Massachusetts clinging to a "very, very small lead."

Yet, shortly after 8:30 on Boston's WCVB-TV (Channel 5), Democratic strategist Mary Ann Marsh declared that the junior senator from Massachusetts was riding an "unstoppable tidal wave" toward the nomination. Soon after that, CNN pundit James Carville predicted the nomination could be wrapped up in a few weeks, suggesting that Kerry was firmly in the driver's seat.

Asked to characterize the media's coverage of the Democratic presidential contest to date, Tom Rosenstiel, director of the Project for Excellence in Journalism, quipped, "Often wrong, but never in doubt."

And thus far it has been a bumpy ride. Prior to last week's surprise Iowa caucus results, some commentators were floating the idea that former governor Howard Dean of Vermont was inexorably heading for his party's nomination. Last night, when a consensus emerged that Kerry had a decisive win in the Granite State, the media pendulum started swinging toward anointing him the new leader of the pack.

With television outlets agreeing not to spill the exit poll beans and projected winners until the polls closed, viewers heard the first calls of a definitive Kerry victory between 8 and 8:30 p.m. CNN's flip-flop -- in which it changed its call from a nail-biter to a Kerry victory in minutes -- was jarring, with Blitzer simply telling viewers that "it's a little bit less of a horse race than we earlier thought it would be." Conversely, Boston's WHDH-TV (Channel 7) beat the competition by making an early call for Kerry at about 8, with political editor Andy Hiller declaring "he may have a pretty big win."

In the days leading up to yesterday's voting, a deluge of tracking polls helped to create the expectation of a Kerry victory in New Hampshire. Five major surveys -- ranging from the Boston Globe/WBZ poll to the MSNBC/Reuters/Zogby poll -- had Kerry leading Dean by double digits, although several suggested Dean was closing the gap in recent days. But Rosenstiel said he thinks the volatile dynamic created by a large field of relatively strong contenders has complicated the media's task. "Because you have so many candidates," he said, "the so-called expectation game and the horse race game is much more confusing."

If last night's win clarified Kerry's front-runner status, it also could signal the onset of tougher, Dean-like media scrutiny of the Massachusetts senator. Larry J. Sabato, director of the University of Virginia's Center for Politics, said the coverage of Dean has been "overwhelmingly negative," and in recent days Dean himself increasingly has attacked the performance of the press.

But in a story on last night's NBC newscast, correspondent Kelly O'Donnell foreshadowed Kerry's new status, saying "success attracts a closer look" and the senator may now be "the next target."

Mark Jurkowitz can be reached at jurkowitz@globe.com.