By: Mary Mostert, Analyst, Banner of Liberty (bannerofliberty.com)
February 15, 2001
It was embarrassing, not only to the network chiefs who got the "flogging" in Congress yesterday as the New York Times puts it this morning, but for the entire national media. Was the "flogging" deserved or should we all believe the media executives who repeatedly reminded us that the chaos on election night was not typical of them.?
Before the hearing began, the Committee on Energy and Commerce showed a videotape of anchormen and talking-heads mangling the November 7th election news. "Take it to the bank," Dan Rather, the CBS anchorman, told the nation of his network's reliability before declaring Al Gore the winner, retracting that, calling George W. Bush the winner, then retracting that.
According to the New York Times, the committee "dominated by Republicans and still smarting from the chaos of that night, brought the news executives to Washington today to flog them publicly for making early projections that led the nation astray and, some Republicans said, might have discouraged voters in later time zones from going to the polls at all."
Actually, the Democrats on the committee didn't seem any more supportive than the Republicans, leaving the network executives to fall back on their "rights" as the fourth estate in doing as they please without government questions. Representative Bill Tauzin, (R-LA), chairman of the committee responded to that notion by recognizing the media's First Amendment right to get it wrong:
. "We would defend your right to do it wrong if you really want to," Mr. Tauzin said, "but how can we help you get it right?"
The executives could scarcely contain their arrogance in spite of the fact the congressmen had kept them cooling their heels waiting to be called for more than five hours. Roger Ailes, chairman and chief executive of Fox News, the first of the networks to give out the wrong information, said:
"I am deeply disappointed that this is being handled as an investigative and not as a legislative fact-finding matter. I am further disappointed that this committee views its role as adversarial, requiring us to take an oath as if we have something to hide. We do not. With or without a swearing-in photo op, we will hide nothing."
In spite of their defensiveness, in the end they all recognized that the very public proof of their careless disregard for accuracy has cost them heavily in viewer confidence. Put bluntly, millions of people who thought they were getting reliable news from the Networks found out on November 7th that they were not. Most of the time when they report on a story, the general public has not been able to so easily catch their mistakes.
Just in case they failed to get the point, the Committee of politicians who had all suffered from media error in the past, showed them a humbling 10-minute video that Chairman Tauzin, a former Democrat, and his staff had assembled showing CBS anchorman Don Rather as saying:
"Let's give a tip of the Stetson to the loser, Vice President Al Gore, and at the same time, a big tip and a hip, hip, hurrah and a great big Texas howdy to the new president of the United States. Sip it. Savor it. Cup it. Photostat it. Underline it in red. Press it in a book. Put it in an album. Hang it on the wall. George Bush is the next president of the United States."
On NBC, Tom Brokaw arrogantly announced:
"What the networks giveth, the networks taketh away."
All of the executives blamed the chaos on the Voter News Service, which is a creation of all the networks, who are supposed to be giving out unbiased, competitive information. Since all of them jointly own Voter News Service, all of them gave out the same wrong information.
The network anchors were not the only people up all night trying to figure out what was happening. I was up all night too and I didn't have access to the Voter News Service. What I did have access to in this era of communication technology were the State Election returns being posted as they were coming in on Secretary of State websites in nearly every state in the union. What I could not figure out was how Florida was being called for Al Gore BEFORE A SINGLE VOTE HAD BEEN COUNTED! The networks called the election for Al Gore ten minutes before the polls closed in the Eastern Standard Time zone.
That was exactly 10 minutes before working people in California and other Pacific Time Zone states got in their cars and headed home. Throughout the entire rush hour traffic time in California, millions of people were hearing that Al Gore had won Florida, which meant that he had won the Electoral College vote.
I have reported that several California election poll workers have told me that the number of Republicans coming to vote dropped sharply at that point, even though before that announcement there had been an unusually heavy turn-out of Republican voters. In spite of clear evidence to the contrary, the network executives and even members of Congress repeatedly denied that there was any "provable" impact in the West on voters.
However, in the end the network executives unanimously agreed that it would be a "good idea" to have simultaneous closing times for all states. The reason why I suspect they think it is a "good idea" is because they realize a growing number of people who were on the Internet searching for information were not being deceived by the network news chaos.
As I worked at my computer and watched the networks over my shoulder on the night of November 7th, I could not figure out where they were getting such wrong information. Furthermore, I could not figure out how they were so confident of their incorrect figures even before the polls had CLOSED in Florida. In some states where there was a very early, comfortable lead for George W. Bush, the networks waited for hours to declare him the winner, while declaring Al Gore the winner in Florida before the polls even closed.
Throughout the next few weeks, from November 7th to December 19th, literally no two networks were giving out the same figures. On December 19th someone compiled a report and sent it to me using the official vote figures for the first time. I checked a number of states and found the figures used to be official totals. However, both the reader who sent me the report and I warned that the totals had not been verified in all states. Some states still didn't have verified totals posted on their websites. I posted the links to all State election return websites for readers to check and in less than two hours I had received several e-mail from people who found the official figures in the report in the State of Michigan had been transposed giving Al Gore Bush's total and Bush the total for all the candidates.
Not to be outdone by the networks, at that point a number of Internet sites, including NewsMax and a number of conservative newspapers, picked up the incorrect report and published it, without double checking for accuracy or including the warnings or the sources where the reader could do their own verifications. To their credit many reporters on small newspapers and radio stations around the country have contacted me about that report to verify its accuracy. As recently as yesterday Craig Franklin of the Jena Times in Jena, Louisiana somehow managed to do what those high powered media executives and a number of large Internet news sources failed to have their staffs do - he double-checked. He sent me the following e-mail:
"Recently I received an e-mail which reported that George W. Bush actually won the popular vote over Al Gore by a total of 1,932,632 votes."This e-mail said that your site, Original Sources, could verify this total. Could you please tell me if this is accurate, or if I am being mis-lead by a bogus e-mail?"
I wrote back telling him it was not correct and he could double-check the totals on my website at: http://www.bannerofliberty.com/OS12-00MQC/12-20-2000.1.html - My Official Vote Count commentary on the topic and http://www.nara.gov/fedreg/elctcoll/2000popres.html - The National Archives official count for 2000 election.
He responded with:
"Thank you. You saved us from a grave error."
Folks, the real solution to the problem being discussed in Washington is simple. What is needed are more news people who will have the journalistic integrity to do what Craig Franklin did. Check the source and stop trying to find someone else to blame.
The problem with the networks is that they had one source - their own company, Voter News Service, and they relied on it. Then, the rest of the news media copied the "big guys" and published the wrong data they they had not checked out either. Was it just a fluke that VNS was inaccurate "this time?" No. It's been inaccurate before and it has provided "news" that was made up before the votes were counted.
This time, they just got caught.
To comment: mmostert@bannerofliberty.com
To Subscribe to the Reagan Monitor, the newsletter that gives you news FACTS you can USE to make your life, and the world, better go to:
Start Your Subscription
