When News Breaks, He Fixes It

John Ellis criticizes the exit polls that suggested a big Kerry win on Tuesday:

The weirdest thing about Election Day 2004 was the seven or so hours, from roughly 1:30 p.m. to roughly 9 p.m. when Big Media's story-line was based upon fiction. Kerry never led Bush nationally by 4 points. He was never ever close in any Southern state save Florida (and he lost that by 5). Colorado wasn't close. Virginia wasn't close. Kerry never led Bush by double-digits in Pennsylvania. Everything that was hinted at, winked along, or implied by the deluded talking heads was, in fact, fiction.

Ellis neglects to mention the biggest blunder a TV network has ever made in a presidential election: Wrongly declaring a winner in Florida twice on election night 2000, first in favor of Gore and several hours later for Bush. As the official 537-vote margin demonstrated, the state was too close to call. (To put it in perspective, Iowa has yet to be called this year because of a 14,000-vote difference.)

When TV networks jumped the gun twice by declaring a winner, putting the legitimacy of the election forever in question, they committed one of the most egregious mistakes in media history.

The journalist most responsible for that mistake at Fox News? John Ellis. He has as much credibility on this subject as Jayson Blair on ethics.

Journalism · Politics · 2004/11/05 · 5 COMMENTS · Link

Comments

Credible or not, the numbers he speaks of are true.

#1 · Dave · 2004/11/05

The credibility has nothing to do with the elections themselves. It has everything to do with the junk coverage we recieved. If you really must know, the exit polls have been proven useless, yet again, and the only real pollster to get it correct is the same pollster that is discredited every election by upstart pollsters (Rassmussen, Zogby etc.) but somehow manages to get it right every time exept for the Dewey debacle: Gallup.

#2 · Jeremy · 2004/11/07

I still wonder why 75% of the people I talk to voted for Kerry but Bush still won? Everywhere you go there are people saying the same thing.

#3 · Joe · 2004/11/08

Nevertheless, something doesn't pass the sniff test from what is being uncovered in irregular results in Florida and Ohio.

#4 · Dave · 2004/11/09

"I don't know how Richard Nixon could have won. I don't know anybody who voted for him." - Pauline Kael

Joe, you need to get out more.

#5 · Michael Pate · 2004/11/10