2016 Postmortem
Related: About this forumShould news organizations keep certain stories secret until they feel the public is ready for them?
I think it smacks of elitism when news executives have a story all ready to go but decide to temporarily withhold it from the public because they don't want to steal a certain politician's thunder. Or they don't want someone casting a vote to have access to the information in the news story. I don't see much difference in holding back a genuine news story about delegate counts and holding back a story about (for example) a candidate's DUI until after the election.
Trust Buster
(7,299 posts)Agnosticsherbet
(11,619 posts)So, no.
Sheepshank
(12,504 posts).....Regarding the timing on releasing the delegate number and making the call. The bottom line being, AP has some news and they won't hold back.
jberryhill
(62,444 posts)braddy
(3,585 posts)Nye Bevan
(25,406 posts)all day on election day. If someone on the West coast knows that the election has already been decided, they can stay home if they want, but they still have the option of voting. Or if OTOH the election hangs very much in the balance, based upon exit polls, maybe more people on the West coast would vote than normal.
braddy
(3,585 posts)You forget that announcing a presidential winner can lead masses of voters to blow off voting on the West Coast, and there is more involved than just the presidency.
bigwillq
(72,790 posts)geek tragedy
(68,868 posts)I do think, from a civic point of view, there's something disquieting about how this played out. The Clinton campaign didn't publicly state it had these commitments, and wasn't counting them externally, but the AP used them to declare the Democratic race over, 12 hours before primary voting begins.
there's nothing elitist about reporting that the Clinton campaign has unannounced commitments, and on those grounds not counting them on the scoreboard.
we don't know who these delegates are, how many of them there are, etc etc etc.
Just not good.