Globe Erroneously declares Coakley Winner ! Screen Grab

[Laura PourMeADrink]

http://www.bostonherald.com/news/politics/view.bg?articleid=1226731


Globe jumps the gun in online map goof
By Joe Dwinell
Tuesday, January 19, 2010 - Updated 3h agoBuzz up!Not so fast.

In a premature online Dewey beats Truman moment, boston.com today posted an online map of Massachusetts voting results declaring Attorney General Martha Coakley the winner of today’s special U.S. Senate election.

Whoops.

There’s only one problem, guys - the polls are open until 8 p.m.

“It was a test on a tool and it meant nothing. I don’t know how these things happen,” said the executive assistant to the editor of boston.com. The editor, David Beard, has yet to return a call to the Herald.

The boston.com map called the race for Coakley 50 percent to state Sen. Scott Brown’s 49 percent. Independent Joseph L. Kennedy, no relation to the Kennedy clan, comes in last with a mere 1 percent.

Ouch.

The bogus map shows Coakley capturing most of eastern Massachusetts all the way to the tip of Cape Cod.

Brown was big, in the Globe’s wish map, taking the North Shore.

The map is now down - at least until the real results come in after 8 p.m.

UPDATE: Bob Powers, vice president of communications for the Globe, blamed the goof on the Associated Press. Here’s his statement:

"AP was testing an election data feed to its Massachusetts clients. During corresponding tests at our end, the feed of AP’s hypothetical test data was inadvertently posted for a few minutes on a single subsection page within our site. As soon as the error was discovered, it was removed. We regret the