All Blog Posts from Public Eye

Tired? Yeah, us too. It was a long night. One aspect of the coverage-of-the-coverage that's struck us this morning is the notion, as laid out in a New York Times story, that the networks exercised "an unusual degree of caution" in calling the House of Representatives for the Democrats. Perhaps the caution was "unusual" compared to two years ago. But was it a surprise? Hardly. The cult of being first has faded somewhat from the news race Tired? Yeah, us too. It was a long night. One aspect of the coverage-of-the-coverage that's struck us this morning is the notion, as laid out in a New York Times story, that the networks exercised "an unusual degree of caution" in calling the House of Representatives for the Democrats. Perhaps the caution was "unusual" compared to two years ago. But was it a surprise? Hardly. The cult of being first has faded somewhat from the news race – now calling a race a few minutes after the competition seems like a relatively small setback. What the networks are really terrified of is being wrong – that's what people remember, after all. What if CBS News had called the House for the Democrats, and then it turned out that those making the call had their numbers wrong? Can you imagine the criticism the network would have faced? In today's environment, in which mistakes are used as evidence of hopeless ideological bias, you'd be nuts not to be cautious.

Moving on, but related: Did anyone (besides Stelter) notice this tidbit about the National Election Pool from the Los Angeles Times? "In the middle of its election coverage, Fox News — one of the members of the consortium [of five networks and the Associated Press that commissions the national exit polls] — announced that it was going to stop relying on the exit-poll data because its decision-desk analysts had discovered a Democratic bias of six to eight percentage points in many areas after comparing the survey results with the actual vote." It's not surprising that networks would distrust the exit poll data after the mess in 2004, when the exit polls suggested that John Kerry was on its way to victory. Last night's early numbers, which leaked to a number of blogs, were skewed towards Democrats to such a degree that the networks didn't trust them. “We were told the numbers simply looked way out of whack,” Allison Gollust, spokeswoman for NBC News, told the New York Times. “They just seemed too far off of expectations."

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It’s finally here -- Election Day! And you know what that means right? Well, for the most part, it means a day of sitting around twiddling thumbs if you’re a political junkie or involved in covering the results in any way. Of course our attentions will turn toward stories that pop up here or there – tales of voting problems, speculation about turnout in key places and what that might mean, even the weather will get a turn in the pundit spotlight before the day is out.

It’s a day to talk – and talk, and talk and talk – about pretty much nothing at all. This is why there is so much angst about the exit polls this year, or more precisely, about the lack of them. We looked into the role exit polls play in election night “calls” yesterday and noted this year’s twist – the “quarantine room.” Unlike years past when early exit poll numbers began circulating around news rooms, this year all the data will be locked up until 5:00pm on the east coast.

Why is this being done? Well, simply put, it’s almost irresponsible to let them get out any earlier in today’s media landscape.

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It’s one of the most misunderstood parts of Election Night coverage – “the call,” that moment (or moments) when a network anchor puts his or her finger to their ear and dramatically announces a campaign victor, often before even most of the votes have been counted. Making “the call” is a scientific process, overseen by smart people with letters like Ph.D. behind their names. But for the audience, it too often resembles a magic act.

Having covered political campaigns closely over the past decade and a half, I’m used to hearing the same questions over and over from friends and family members less immersed in the minutia of elections. The hardest question by far to answer is this one: How can the networks possibly know who won a race before the votes are counted? The answer isn’t simple but let’s give it another shot.

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Warren Mitofsky was not a household name by any standard but almost every American is familiar with his pioneering work that has helped us all better understand how our democracy functions. What George Gallup was to public opinion polls, Mitofsky was to election exit polling and his passing – he died of a heart aneurysm last Friday at age 71 – leaves a large void in an area of expertise few understand well. From the Associated Press:

Mitofsky developed the election projection and analysis system used by CBS News and later by a consortium of news organizations. He first conducted an exit poll in 1967 in a Kentucky governor's election for CBS News. He conducted the first national exit poll in 1972 and covered nearly 3,000 electoral contests in all.

"It's because of Warren Mitofsky that America and the world has become accustomed to learning who won an election quickly and reliably, and what the election meant to the voters themselves," said Kathleen Frankovic, director of surveys at CBS News. "Without him, we might still be guessing why elections turn out the way they do.”

Mitofsky was executive director of CBS News election and survey unit from 1967 until 1990. In 1976 he and editors at The New York Times established a polling collaboration that became a model for rival partnerships.

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Warren Mitofsky was not a household name by any standard but almost every American is familiar with his pioneering work that has helped us all better understand how our democracy functions. What George Gallup was to public opinion polls, Mitofsky was to election exit polling and his passing – he died of a heart aneurysm last Friday at age 71 – leaves a large void in an area of expertise few understand well. From the Associated Press:

Mitofsky developed the election projection and analysis system used by CBS News and later by a consortium of news organizations. He first conducted an exit poll in 1967 in a Kentucky governor's election for CBS News. He conducted the first national exit poll in 1972 and covered nearly 3,000 electoral contests in all.

"It's because of Warren Mitofsky that America and the world has become accustomed to learning who won an election quickly and reliably, and what the election meant to the voters themselves," said Kathleen Frankovic, director of surveys at CBS News. "Without him, we might still be guessing why elections turn out the way they do.”

Mitofsky was executive director of CBS News election and survey unit from 1967 until 1990. In 1976 he and editors at The New York Times established a polling collaboration that became a model for rival partnerships.

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Warren Mitofsky was not a household name by any standard but almost every American is familiar with his pioneering work that has helped us all better understand how our democracy functions. What George Gallup was to public opinion polls, Mitofsky was to election exit polling and his passing – he died of a heart aneurysm last Friday at age 71 – leaves a large void in an area of expertise few understand well. From the Associated Press:

Mitofsky developed the election projection and analysis system used by CBS News and later by a consortium of news organizations. He first conducted an exit poll in 1967 in a Kentucky governor's election for CBS News. He conducted the first national exit poll in 1972 and covered nearly 3,000 electoral contests in all.
"It's because of Warren Mitofsky that America and the world has become accustomed to learning who won an election quickly and reliably, and what the election meant to the voters themselves," said Kathleen Frankovic, director of surveys at CBS News. "Without him, we might still be guessing why elections turn out the way they do.”
Mitofsky was executive director of CBS News election and survey unit from 1967 until 1990. In 1976 he and editors at The New York Times established a polling collaboration that became a model for rival partnerships.

Read full post…