Mr Piggie.
Posted on 11/07/2018 2:49:58 PM PST by RightGeek
“Why can we call the Democrats taking the House this early?” Fox News anchor Bret Baier asked analyst Chris Stirewalt. “Because we’re just that good,” Stirewalt replied with a proud smirk.
That just about sums up Fox’s election coverage of the 2018 midterms. It was a self-indulgent display of self-promotion, bickering, and irresponsibility as the entire House was called before polls in the western part of the country had even closed. One has to wonder how many people were deterred from voting when they heard Republicans had already lost the House.
There was a time when news media covered elections without needing to be the first horse out of the gate with results. Reporters would patiently wait for polls to close, for the numbers to be tallied, and for a clear winner to be tabulated. That changed with exit polling and guesses about whether these reflected what really happened inside the voting booths.
Last night, Fox News jumped the shark. They had a new system they claimed would deliver unprecedented accuracy -- they used voters’ surveys along with the AP’s race results to predict outcomes. With this methodology, they called the House before anyone else -- to the anger of many viewers.
With just two gains by Democrats and still early in the evening, Baier suddenly announced that the Democrats had taken the House. Not “we project that they’ve taken the House” (an addition they made later after, no doubt because complaints flooded their phone lines). Not simply “we think this will be a good night for the Democrats based on our analysis.” Nope, they jumped ahead in time and declared it as if it had already occurred -- with many people not even voting yet.
[SNIP]
(Excerpt) Read more at pjmedia.com ...
FNC is just like all the other major news outlets (MSM plus CNN, MSNBC). They focus on viewer numbers to create entertainment but what the viewers want is a straight forward news reporting service without a lot of hoopla.
Fox News hit a new low last night.
Especially when Chris Wallace objected to the panel saying that Trump had made the difference. Wallace: “We should not be calling Trump Hosanna”
Laura Ingraham was the only panelist who continually defended Trump in the face of her fellow FOX’ers who demeaned Trump’s influence whenever they could.
Like I say. CNN is actually better in a way. They all admit they hate Trump.
ff
Watched OAN on Directv and FR all night - after I saw the likes Of Marie Harf and Juan Williams were going to be “analyzing” the races, no Fox for me......
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You don’t know who voted or didn’t.
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You don’t know who voted or didn’t.
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Saw your Twitter feed last night. Just saw this and thought of you, FRiend. :-)
Chris Wallace was insufferable last night. President Trump has clearly been living rent-free in Wallace's liberal head for a long time. Wish I had a dollar for every time Wallace sneered the word "Trump" last night.
And the pompous, porky, smirking Chris Stirewalt, making his stupid Bit-O-Honey comments over and over... Ugh! WHY was this doofus ever hired by FNC?? He's so damn full of his 'genius' self.
Laura Ingraham was fantastic, as was Mollie Hemingway. I'm certain Shannon Bream is a conservative, but forced to stay in her 'straight news' lane. Brit Hume was his usual RINO self. Stupid Juan Williams is a total idiot - we flipped the channel every time he started talking.
"83% of the vote in Florida is in!"
Yeah, what counties and precincts specifically, Chris?? Miami-Dade? Broward? the Panhandle?? That would have been highly useful information from the FNC "Brain Room" last night.
Stirewalt is *highly* annoying, and he wasted much of our time last night.
As much as I think I believe in freedom of the press, I would not vote against legislation that required no official federal election poll results reported to anyone until twelve hours after all polls in the country had closed. If the press wants “in on” what will be reported, they’d have to be sequested and incommunicado at the sites where the polls were either tabulated or collected, and held to the same restriction as to when the results could be publicly reported.
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