Frankly, I don't care if the media releases exit poll numbers and predicts a winner at 10 AM, but the total hypocrisy of the media (if the rumor is true) releasing exit poll data 3 hours before the polls close just pisses me off. The Most Important Issue in election 2000 wasn't the 80,000+ people who were wrongly scrubbed from the voter rolls, it wasn't the "bourgeois" riot by Republican staffers, it wasn't the Supreme Court's emergency stay due to the possible "irreperable harm" to one George W. Bush, it was the fact that the media called the election 15 minutes before the polls closed on the Florida panhandle, causing literally millions of panhandle voters to turn their cars around and drive home. Since then they promised us over and over that they would never ever do such a thing. Oy.
Actually, I wish they would release the data - the numbers are always an "open secret" in the media, and you can infer what they are from the little giggles the know-it-alls start making. It influences their coverage in an obvious way.