This is a time of debate and introspection. Last week, we had to go to class, and choose which professors would determine the course of our next four months. In seven weeks, America will go to the polls and decide who the leader of the free world will be.

Today, accuracy is at a premium.

In this crucial moment, more than any other, we depend upon our media to do their homework, if we are going to have to do our duty.

Yet, the press fails us.

The media are frequently misrepresenting the meaning of polls. In a Sept. 19 article on the state of the presidential election, "Polls have mixed Results for Gore," Associated Press writer William Lester stated that, "the CNN/Gallup poll gives Gore a 5 percent edge, while the Voter.com poll puts Gore and Bush in a dead heat." He implied that while one poll shows the candidates tied, the other shows Gore to be ahead. This isn't true.

A poll shows that a candidate is ahead only when the difference between his support and the support for another candidate is twice the margin of error.

Polls measure averages. The margin of error demonstrates the range where that average could be. For example, if 45 percent of voters say they will vote for you, in a poll with a margin of error of five percent, that means your support is somewhere between 40 and 50 percent. If in the same poll, your opponent gets 39 percent support, the six percent difference does not mean you are ahead. Because your support could be as low as 41 percent, and that of your opponent as high as 44 percent, you are tied.

The Gallup poll (where Gore gets five percent more support than Bush) has a margin of error of four percent. The Voter.com poll (where Bush gets two percent more support than Gore) has a margin of error of three percent. Thus, in both polls, Bush and Gore are in a "statistical dead heat." No one has an edge. Nevertheless, this article, like many others I have read, mistakenly puts Gore ahead.