Newspapers have an obligation to report as much information as they have in as accurate a characterization as they can manage.

This morning, USA Today reported that its own poll showed Bush ahead of Kerry. But it stuffs the news that two other polls still have the competitors in a statistical dead heat down in the 8th paragraph. The headline supports the lead (though an abbreviated headline on the website mentions both).

USA Today should not privilege its own poll over equally valid polls in order to have a scoop or even to tout the fact that it conducted a poll in the first place. Give the whole news–which is still that no one knows who’s gonna win this thing.