Posted on 11/03/2004 7:46:28 PM PST by Goodwillhntg
FOX sold out last night..er.. this morning.. in their coverage of the election. True, they were cautious and rightly so early in the evening.. esp with Florida, but as the night turned into morning and as the outcome became certain, they folded up the tent and choked with a 3-2 count and the winning run on 3rd base. I digress..
It became obvious if FOX declared Bush the winner in NEV as he obviously was, they would be the sole MSM to announce Bush had gone over the 270 requirement and won re-election. They would not announce NEV even though CNN and CBS (of all people) had announced it. What happened next must have been a "we are at the looking glass moment"...FOX at some level decided they had to also leave WISC as too close to call even though sKerry looked like the winner. Why? Because they knew people would recognize the vote difference in WISC was smaller than that in NEV and OH... to be a fly on the wall at FOX during that discussion would have been priceless.
Nice going FOX, is D. Rather leasing out his kneepads?
Picked this up off junkyardblog. It is INFURIATING.
I never before saw networks stopping calling states in order to keep a candidate from winning.
From Imus in the Morning -- 11/03/04
Imus: At around 2:30am this morning, you were coming back from a break....and before you were talking to us [the audience], you said to somebody, "Are you getting nervous?" Who were you talking to?"
Brokaw: I think I was talking to myself. (laughter) I am not sure. uh....oh, I think I was talking back to the desk in, the decision desk because we made the call on Ohio. I didn't realize because part of the deal was this time was that we wouldn't check...I didn't know what the other networks were doing. Then I found out we were out there with just Fox. The others, ABC and CBS had not called Ohio. So I just said, "Are you getting nervous about this." And they said, "No we are feeling very confident about it."
(Later in conversation with Brokaw)
Imus: What was the the President waiting for to declare victory---some network to award him Nevada or New Mexico?
Brokaw: No. I think he was at one point. We had emails and calls from the White House [asking] "Why aren't you calling Nevada and New Mexico?"
We were not going to get into that position as long as the Kerry people were contesting Ohio, as I think they had every right to do. We wanted to let that play out because they felt they could pull that back into their column. That's why their doing that. And after what we went through 4 years ago, we weren't going to get into a position where we were going to declare a winner and have to pull that back or something else would happen.
So, we just stopped declaring states after Ohio at 269.
Well! How convenient! So NBC knew if they called Nevada, they would be forced to admit Bush won the majority of electoral votes. So they held out hope for Kerry and refused to call it.
UPDATE: Someone has just informed me that they distinctly remember Brokaw calling Nevada for Bush at one point last night around 4 AM when someone else posted that Brokaw declared Bush had won the election. But then did they retract it after getting a call from Kerry about the Ohio provisional ballot B.S.?
MORE: After Brokaw, Russert was interviewed by Imus:
Russert: The Kerry people will privately admit it is very hard to see where they can find 135,000 votes. What they were saying last night is that they thought more votes would come in from Cayuga county, raw votes, and that the margin of victory would be around 50,000, and they really wanted to contest that.
Howard Fineman: And one of the things that happened is that the numbers went the other way -- that the margins for Bush increased rather than decreased. And some of the tough talk from the Kerry camp happened before that change.
Imus: Well, who is the President waiting...the Bush campaign...who are they waiting to tell them that they won either Nevada or New Mexico.
Russert: Well, they wanted the television networks...
Imus: They wanted you to tell them, didn't they, like you did Ohio.
Russert: Well, NBC, FOX, CBS, or ABC. Sure. That would give them the imprimatur ...
Around 3am - 3:45am, we had AP, C-SPAN, CBS, & ABC all call Nevada for Bush. It appears NBC "called it before they didn't call it" and allowed Kerry the political cover he needed to challenge in Ohio.
All the networks, including Fox, stopped before they went over 269.
No offense, but these threads about FOX being just as bad as the rest of the MSM are getting real tiresome.
It must be said that it's not the job of TV talking heads to call an election. I can't really fault them on that. If the shoe had been on the other foot we would hardly have applauded them for calling it for kerry while there was still a remote chance that Bush might win.
I DO fault them for their biased exit polls and their biased handling of many of the earlier calls. They called states for kerry where the margin was small; they waited much longer to call states for Bush where the margin was a great deal larger. Everyone noticed that.
That and the crooked exit polling were the real disgraces.
they, including FOX, were all cowards... if you're going to take a chance and call Ohio, (FOX, NBC, MSNBC) then you might as well go all the way and call them all--all of the ones you are sure about: Nevada, New Mexico... at least Nevada... why call Ohio if you are then afraid to declare a winner? it was such a let down...
No offense taken.. my point was to say that although I love FOX and they have been our source of light in times of darkness.. this episode last night was scary..showed they didnt have the nuts to be independent... the very reason they have become successful. It just makes me wonder is this episode an outlier in the data or a signal we should take note of as a foreshadowing..they will go down the same transparent roads as the rest of the MSM.
"FOX NEWS - YOU DECIDE".. and then.. well..eh.. we will decide to let you know what you decided when it doesnt upset anyone.
Many of us watched that whole revolting episode. I went home and to bed when I realized that they would not admit that Bush had won Iowa, NV and NM when it was impossible statistically for him to lose them.
FOX is the best of a very poor lot. Public Enemy #1 is the RATmedia.
They are not AS bad but are only slightly better. A handful of conservatives does not make the network a conservative one. Studies showed FOX to have a slight bias towards Kerry while all the others were rabidly pro-Kerry.
FOX would be much better if O'Reilly were replaced by Laura Ingraham. Gretta's program is unwatchable. If Rush were on the channel it would be fantastic.
Nevada could have counted all those votes twice in the time it took them to call Nevada. I don't give Fox a pass on this at all.
Don't replace O'Reilly although be is a bloviator, just replace Greta with Laura after the Factor
I was thinking the same thing...even emailed Fox and asked why they "cut and run". Of course I got no answer....
I agree that FNC was disappointing last night. I am an avid fan of FNC every evening (except for Greta where I switch over to Scarborough Country). However I am concerned that they are trying to be what the other media already is and they'll lose their core viewers. I hope others who are disappointed in FNC will take action and send them your comments so they recognize what is so obvious to most of us. I believe they will take our comments seriously and I know they do read viewer comments. Send your comments to Brit Hume too- he actually responds to emails at times.
No, Fox being as bad as the rest of the MSN is what is getting real tiresome.
"It must be said that it's not the job of TV talking heads to call an election."
That is what they have always done on election night as long as their was TV. If they are not going to call states, then why have election night coverage? At some point, after calling a certain number of states, it becomes obvious that somebody had won the election. They are not certifying the election, only calling the election, and that is the job of the press and always has been.
" Then don't read them and don't post on them."
It's kina hard to ignore the plethora of threads like this. Do a search and post your comments on an existing thread.
I watched CNN about 70 percent of the time and they were ACTAULLY pretty fair up until about midnight. The NASDEQ screen was nice, too. It was fun to see the depression kick in. Then when they started hoping that the EC would be tied at 269, I started watching the analysis on Fox.
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