FOX News Channel host Bill O'Reilly falsely claimed that “the mainstream media ... picked up” inaccurate exit poll data favoring Senator John Kerry from the Internet and “started to circulate it” before the polls closed on Election Day. In fact, no “mainstream media” outlets reported the exit poll data before polls closed. Moreover, O'Reilly's claim that mainstream outlets “picked up the polls” from the Internet is nonsensical, since these outlets received the data directly from Edison Media Research and Mitofsky International -- the firms that conducted the exit polls -- but pledged in advance not to report it before polls closed.

From the November 5 broadcast of the nationally syndicated Radio Factor:

O'REILLY: There's a danger now to the country, because innuendo, allegation, falsehood, and manipulation become facts instantly on the Net. And they're often picked up, then, by the mainstream media as they picked up the polls -- the exit polls.

So, early in the day on Election Day, someone leaked out false polling information to the Net, which showed that [Senator John] Kerry was winning big. The mainstream media, without any skepticism -- and I have to say I'm very proud of myself, I was one of the few that were skeptical because I despise what's going on the Net so much -- started to circulate it.

A consortium of news outlets (ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN, FOX News Channel, and the Associated Press), known as the National Election Pool, commissioned Edison and Mitofsky to conduct exit polling for all nationally significant races. A Media Matters for America review found no instances of these outlets reporting exit poll data before polls had closed. ABC News, Bloomberg.com, MSNBC.com, and Reuters also reported that independent websites, not news outlets, disseminated the exit poll results favoring Kerry.