On Election Night, Networks Plan to Proceed With Caution

[TexasLawyer]

On Election Night, Networks Plan to Proceed With Caution

By Howard Kurtz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, November 2, 2006

The television networks could be in for a long night on Tuesday.

"Mathematically," CBS Senior Vice President Linda Mason says of the election coverage, "you could know by 10 for the House and 11 for the Senate." But, she says, "it could go on until all hours of the early morning."

"We have learned from past mistakes," says NBC anchor Brian Williams. "I start from the assumption I will wake up with a sore back on my couch" after an all-nighter. "There's likely to be a lot of hedging," says ABC's George Stephanopoulos. "You may know it, but you can't say it."

If the Democrats capture the House, television anchors won't be able to project that until they are sure the party has locked in a 15-seat gain. Fortunately for them, 35 of the 53 closest races, as handicapped by analyst Charlie Cook, are in states where polls close by 8 p.m. Eastern time.

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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/11/01/AR2006110103434_pf.html

[bleever]

1. Then again, it may be weeks before we know who runs which Houses.

I think they're gonna need a lot of chaos to get this piggy elected Miss America.

[Mind_your_head]

2. Not to worry.......

...."good people" are gonna know for a long, long time that the media "wags the dog".

MSM will have to do a whole lotta penance, redemption before they are ever believed again.....

[still_one]

3. I guess they want to wait and get their orders from fox

who gets their orders from the white house before they proceed

[wake.up.america]

4. Fox will come out as early as possible to project a win for the GOP, that is obvious.

[applegrove]

9. Would benefit the GOP to say Dems are winning. Redoubled efforts.

Simply keeping the vote & exit polls quiet till as late in the day as possible will keep people from saying "aw my vote doesn't matter - my guy has won".

The election results will tell us in the end.

[wake.up.america]

15. Ok, maybe you are right.

[applegrove]

20. The reluctant responder theory of early 2005 states that the exit polls

were off due to GOP reluctance to respond. I think they are big fat liars. And such exit polls being released at 2PM..kept many Dems home from voting. Cause Dems "already had the win locked up" by then. Just my speculation. But there is as much evidence of that as anything else regarding exit polls. And Exit polls were off in districts where there were no machines.

Time will tell. I just about a week.

[Mind_your_head]

5. How silly that sounds.....

....no offense.

Youre not going to believe FOX (what an appropriate name....) just b/c they say something, are you?

Fox doesn't have any obligation to be fair or even 'right' when they PROCLAIM something.....again, "no offense" but "How dumb are you"?

[still_one]

7. How DUMB ARE YOU? have you ever heard of sarcasm?

no offense

[Mind_your_head]

11. Yes, I've heard of sarcasm, but pushing a "meme"

just 'because' ..... well, is not a good thing.

[last_texas_dem]

14. I wouldn't be surprised...

In 2000, the networks, taking their cues from Bush's cousin (seriously) at Faux News, calling the election for Shrub are what allowed his campaign to continually assert that he was the President-elect throughout the aftermath of the campaign. It allowed Shrub to make it seem inevitable that he was the President-to-be and that anything Al Gore did to try to get an accurate count of the vote was just to steal Shrub's thunder.

The sad thing is how little things have changed since then. 9/11 allowed Shrub to be a wartime Pretzeldent and made the media kiss his ass some more. They were lined up to do it again after Iraq, and after the '04 elections. Their most recent idiocy, trying to turn John Kerry into the man who hates the troops, is just further proof of how the media takes their cues from the right-wing screamers with no regard to the facts. I've really been trying to not be cynical this election cycle, but seeing the news and the way it's reported never fails to bring me down.

[darkism]

6. They've gotta wait until the country goes to bed...

...so the exit polls can flip the match the engineered outcome.

[0rganism]

8. Exit polls? how quaint, how 1998...

Exit polls are something other countries do. Who needs exit polling when you have Diebold and ES&S to make the votes say any damn thing their corporate masters prefer?

[applegrove]

10. Exit polls have been wrong & off in Rove elections way back to Texas.

There is a problem with your exit polls. That is why the media is being cautious.

You don't want people staying home when they get home from work. You want them to keep going out to vote - don't you.

[truthisfreedom]

12. weird how that is. whenever rove is involved, elections defy the laws

of probability and statistics, even though NOTHING ELSE IN THE UNIVERSE DEFIES THESE LAWS.

[applegrove]

13. The exit polls were off before machines..where Rove was. ???

And in the 2004 election..districts with no machines and only paper ballots..they had "off" exit polls.

We will know come Nov 7th.

[liberal N proud]

16. They could just ask Karl Rove and announce the winners now

[LizW]

17. "You may know it..."

"...but you can't say it."

That is a scary statement. Think about it. WHY would a news organization be afraid to say what they "know"? If polls have been predicting a win for a particular candidate, and the the early returns bear that out, why could they not say this as soon as the polls close?

Because they know that races flip in the late hours. The can't predict what will be stolen and they can't explain it when it happens. They don't want to be scrambling for an "acceptable" explaination of why pre-election polls and exit polls are wrong again.

[tanyev]

18. So George Bush's cousin won't be calling it this year?

Sheesh.

[bemildred]

19. Bullshit.

The state propaganda organs will continue to do their job.