Networks may call the race before voting is complete
According to the NYTimes, at least one broadcast network and one website said Monday that they could try signaling to viewers early Tuesday evening which candidate may have won the presidency.
"When a candidate gets 270 electoral votes, they're the next president," said Sheldon Gawiser,director of elections for NBC news.
News organizations are preparing for a race that could be far less close than those in 2004 or 2000.
The NYTimes reports that the networks are going to be very particular as to how they will telegraph the way the election is going.
I think that networks, whether more liberal or conservative should wait until the polls are closed before making any remarks as to which way the the election is going. This is important because an inaccurate call may in-turn prevent someone from voting.
However I do think that if a presidency candidate has 75 percent of the electoral votes at a given point of time it would be very smart of the networks to make a confident call.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
4 comments:
Tuesday night, I was flipping between channels and noticed MSNBC, FOX and the local news all had different electoral vote numbers. It was very confusing. Most of the electoral votes were counted before all the votes were actually counted. I think it was like Montana or something was declared a McCain state before its votes were even counted! I understand that all news stations want to be the first to announce breaking news but it is not fair to viewers that they are just reporting on information that is just a guess.
On a side note, I also think it was funny that a lot of reporters were having a lot of trouble adding up numbers. I think it was one of our local news anchors that said math was the reason they got into news casting. Hilarious.
I agree with you when you said that you dont think that the networks should show which way the voters are voting, because it can sway people who havent actually voted yet. I think it is cool however that the networks, and media are trying to relay information as quickly as possible, it shows their definetly thinking of their viewers. I know that I was tuned in all night, watching and waiting to see which candidate won.
Looking back to election night, they didn't necessarily call it early, but they did call it as soon as he had over 270 electoral votes.
I also noticed the local news anchor having serious trouble calculating the votes. That is funny and sad. It just makes me watch CNN because they have all of the nice equipment and computers working for them.
Yes, calling an election super early, like during the daytime when people would be voting, is not a good idea.
But in this election, I think we saw a pretty good balance. We all kind of knew who was going to win, but I didn't see any networks call it before Obama got the 270 electoral votes.
"I think it was one of our local news anchors that said math was the reason they got into news casting. Hilarious." Haha. Shannon, that's really funny. But it is an important issue too. Earlier this semester, I blogged about math and economics courses for journalists. Maybe more schools should incorporate these classes into their curriculum in the future.
Post a Comment