Election Night: What Went Wrong

A CBS News probe into its newsgathering on Election Day, and the morning of Nov. 8, gives credence to what many have reported already: Along with other news networks, CBS News blew it.

CBS News accepted final responsibility for two inaccurate presidential election calls in Florida, one in New Mexico and one Senate call in Washington State, says the report, released Thursday. CBS News' calls in New Mexico and Washington later proved to be correct, but they were retracted on election night as having been made too early.

"This candid report stands as a testament to the seriousness and persistence of our effort to maintain the highest credibility with the American public we serve," said CBS News President Andrew Heyward. "Furthermore, we hope this document will serve as a valuable blueprint for CBS News election coverage for many years to come."

Download the report (.pdf format, 235k file).

The 87-page document, prepared by CBS News' public affairs Vice President Linda Mason, CBS News' Director of Surveys Kathleen Frankovic, and Prof. Kathleen Hall Jamieson of the Annenberg School for Communication, states that while the entire system was prone to error, "the ultimate responsibility for the calls we made lies with us at CBS News. It was we at CBS News who analyzed the data ... and decided when to make a call."

Also playing a major role in the problematic election coverage, according to the report, was Voter News Service (VNS). VNS is a consortium formed by major news organizations, which conducts exit polls, collects vote results and projects election winners. VNS is used by the television networks, the Associated Press and about 100 other news organizations.

Though CBS News accepted responsibility, the report, which painstakingly details the blow-by-blow events of the controversial evening, states that flaws inherent in the VNS consortium - and to some extent in the American balloting system itself - were in part responsible for the underlying conditions which made CBS News' flawed performance possible.

In fact, the report doubled as an ultimatum to VNS, saying steps must be taken "to fix problems at VNS or build an alternative service..." and seemed to also have the consortium - as well as ballot-box error - in mind when it noted that "We - and the public - know that some of the events that affected our reporting on Election Night were beyond our control." VNS is conducting its own internal review.

CBS News' errors, most famously reported on live air by anchorman Dan Rather, correspondent Ed Bradley, and other analysts, occurred on an election night few Americans will soon forget. The errors were not confined to television alone: CBSNews.com, as well as CBS Radio, following suit, reported the bad calls mentioned above.

A the night of Nov. 7 heated up, and state-by-state calls came in, Rather told CBS News' viewers that when a race was called, "you can take that to the bank." By the early morning hours of Nov. 8, however, it became clear that day would dawn before a White House winner would be known, and each of the CBS News outlets was forced into an extended period of backpedaling.

Ultimately, the battle for the presidency, essentially a tie, was decided by the U.S. Supreme Court in a split decision favoring President-elect George W. Bush.

On allegations of bias, most famously raised by Rep. Billy Tauzin, R-La., the report concluded there was no evidence to support such claims. In fact, CBS News explicitly refuted the congressman, who said the network expressed "incontrovertible bias" by delaying calls for Mr. Bush.

"Congressman Tauzin’s allegation is serious and needs to be addressed," the CBS reports says, but it adds: "After a close examination of CBS News' coverage, we have concluded that there is no evidence of either intentional or unintentional bias in the timing of the calls."

In the report, CBS News also made suggestions for improving the way national elections are covered, saying "It would be easy to dismiss the bizarre events of Election Night 2000 as an aberration, as something that will never happen again, and to continue covering elections as we always have. But ... this election exposed flaws in the American voting system, imperfections mirrored in television’s coverage."

Here is a partial list of changes recommended in the report: