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The stories that count on money and politics in the race for the White House
US media groups are stepping up efforts to combat the barrage of misinformation expected in next week’s elections, deploying thousands of staffers to broadcast from polling stations to counter baseless accusations of voter fraud , notably those of former President Donald Trump.
The Associated Press, which has been counting votes for U.S. elections since 1848, was “prepared for misinformation around our calls to race,” said Anna Johnson, Washington bureau chief. To counter this, the AP planned “much more explanatory work.”
“Ten years ago or maybe more, when the AP ran a race call, it was just accepted that that was the race call. And there haven’t been a lot of questions about it,” she said. “There certainly wasn’t any misinformation like there is today.”
Rupert Murdoch’s Fox News, America’s most-watched cable news channel, has invested in technology to refine its graphics to help viewers visualize how close different vote tallies are.
In 2020, Fox was the first network to call Arizona for Joe Biden — a move that infuriated Trump supporters.
Arnon Mishkin, who heads Fox News’ “decision desk,” said he stands by the decision and does not feel additional pressure because of the controversy. “Obviously we want to be right. That’s the main pressure,” he said in an interview. “In every election, there is a possibility of contestation afterwards.”
However, he said Fox had taken steps to ensure its anchors weren’t caught off guard by calls from the decision desk into the night. “One of the people on the air was talking and saying, ‘Wait a second, did we just call Arizona or something?'” he recalled in 2020. “We We’ve taken steps to make sure this kind of thing doesn’t happen. “.
The media plays a crucial role in American elections. As votes roll out across the country, Americans are depending on these private news companies to “call” races in every state, based on a mix of proprietary polling data and overnight vote tallies . The process is complicated because procedures and technology differ from one state to another, and even between counties within the same state.
Trump continued to sow doubt in American electoral processes, even though his challenges to the 2020 election results were not supported by any evidence. The Republican Party plans to send thousands of volunteers to monitor suspected fraud on election night. Meanwhile, trust in the media has reached a new low, according to a Gallup survey this month.
This cocktail of factors has left American media groups on the defensive, devoting their resources to “transparency” efforts.
“The best antidote to disinformation or misinformation is real information,” said CNN political director David Chalian. CNN will deploy a “robust team” of journalists to field states to monitor voting progress. “Obviously, I have no control over bad actors injecting bad information. But we have the control to convey relevant, appropriate and contextualized information to the public.
ABC also beefed up a “ballot monitoring team” to monitor vote counts across the country. “I can expect us to say with some regularity: This is what we know, but this is what we don’t know. That doesn’t mean there’s a problem,” ABC political director Rick Klein said.
“Some of the problems that arise on election days are simply part of an inherently complicated process and are not necessarily a sign of a problem,” he added.
American media groups are preparing for an election night that may not result in a clear winner. In 2020, it took four days for the media to declare that Biden had defeated Trump, leaving Americans in suspense as they waited for votes to be counted in Pennsylvania.
Mishkin predicted the “over-under” on when a result would be clear would be Saturday morning.
“When you look at the map of the country, it’s hard to see either of these candidates getting 270 electoral votes without Pennsylvania,” he said. “So I’ll stick with that estimate even though I think Pennsylvania has done a better job and is counting faster, but it’s still counting through the same process. So maybe it’s Friday.
A close race could extend that deadline, Klein said: “If the margin is a few thousand votes, it will take a long time to find out who won. »
