Al Gore Promise to Never Do It Again
A man holds 4 copies of the Chicago Dominicus-Times, each with a different headline, on Nov. viii, 2000. Charles Bennett/AP hide caption
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Charles Bennett/AP
A man holds four copies of the Chicago Sun-Times, each with a unlike headline, on Nov. 8, 2000.
Charles Bennett/AP
20 years ago this week, I begged my bosses to cease the presses so we could avoid reporting a huge story that wasn't true: that Texas Gov. George W. Bush had won Florida, and the presidency.
It was election night — specifically, the early on morn hours of the next 24-hour interval — in November 2000. I was roofing the media's serial missteps for The Baltimore Sun and realized The Sunday was virtually to be defenseless upwards in it all. In the newsroom, I fought through throngs of colleagues who were mapping out the front folio to warn Managing Editor Tony Barbieri: You don't know. You lot tin can't know.
Nether duress to publish, Barbieri nonetheless paused to confer with Washington Bureau Master Paul West. He soon chosen down to the presses, which had started to impress front pages begetting a headline affirming Bush's win. It would have been "the kind of mistake that can follow you lot to the grave in journalism," West recalled Tuesday morning. "And then, by stopping them and telling them that it wasn't over there yet, nosotros actually did our jobs."
Right now, many experienced journalists are thinking dorsum to that fateful nighttime in 2000 and wincing as they anticipate covering Tuesday'south election returns. What happened that night has lessons and echoes for what to expect, what to promise for and what to fearfulness from the media today.
The television set networks fabricated their now infamous "calls" — which is to say projections — four times that nighttime in early November 2000. Beginning they called Florida and hence the election for Vice President Al Gore, which was and then pulled back, and then the same for Bush, which was so pulled dorsum. Television news, reverse to public perception, holds no formal identify in the constitutional process for electing a president. Yet like everyone else, newsroom editors around the state are heavily influenced by what they meet on Goggle box. Even if they work for Television.
At that fourth dimension, I had been on the media beat out just v months, subsequently 3 years of roofing Congress and politics for The Dominicus. I rewrote versions of my story almost the media that nighttime for each of The Sun's five divide editions. I was flipping around, watching what I could in the most quiet place I could discover on a small television in Barbieri's office.
Pull a fast one on News had been the first to call Florida, and hence the ballot, for Bush, at two:17 a.m. The other networks followed conform. One-time earlier 4 a.m., I saw Mark Halperin, now disgraced just so the political director of ABC News, pop up on photographic camera, pointing to numbers on a small screen. The webpage belonged to Florida Secretarial assistant of State Katherine Harris. Its running tally of the vote count showed Bush-league's margin withering as minutes ticked by.
At a certain bespeak, information technology had shrunk to less than 700 votes — in a state where half-dozen million were cast. At that place was no way to know the results. I no longer was worried solely about meeting my newspaper'south deadlines. I was worried about my paper.
Meridian editors were preparing the front folio for the final edition declaring Bush-league to be the victor. I verified the reports, called West, who had been my boss for 3 years, and said, "This is just besides close. At that place'south no way to say in that location'due south a winner." W told me he had tried. I spoke to the page i editor, Paul Moore, who agreed but pointed me to Barbieri, an experienced and sage editor.
By the fourth dimension I reached him, Trish Carroll, who helped oversee production of the print edition, was holding upwardly a phone. The coiffure at the press needed to know which front end page to publish. They had to push button the button to allow the papers wing.
Barbieri pulled abroad and called Westward. "He said it was too close," Barbieri reflected on Tuesday. "He knew by instinct stuff that most of us would have had to serve for twenty years to know. He was so uncertain the whole evening. It just had a funny feel to him." (Barbieri says his only regret is failing to utter those famous words, "Stop the presses!")
The Sunday had dodged a bullet. Many newspapers did not. The U.Southward. Supreme Court would determine the victor more than a month later.
"Of course, everybody in my position that dark had the same nightmare in our heads, which was the headline 'Dewey Defeats Truman,' " Barbieri said.
Our last edition read: "Election too close to call with Fla. in the residuum."
In contempo weeks, I've spoken to executives at all five major tv set news organizations and The Associated Printing. All say publicly and privately that they intend to exist incredibly careful with what they project in the 2022 race. First is less important than right. They are on the baby-sit against misinformation. They are poised to report on the competence and the integrity of the election process.
All of this is to the good.
But President Trump has repeatedly challenged — without any basis — the integrity of voting past mail. He has repeatedly claimed — without any proof — he will simply lose by fraud. And so new and tough questions ascend for the networks in particular: How do they cover him on election night, and in the days alee? Will they comprehend his speeches live? How will they fact-check his claims? What will they practise if he says things that could incite violence by his more than voracious supporters?
The media are probable to exist outmatched once more. And everyone — anybody --is looking over at Play a trick on News.
"They have remarkable influence over a large portion of the American public, apparently almost exclusively Republican and heavily pro-Trump," Due west said. "That's something that didn't exist in the year 2000."
He notes that Fob has had a strong track record for its performance on election nighttime in recent years.
Even before the 2022 election, the network bound itself to the fortunes of Trump. For years, it has served up elaborate discussions of unfounded conspiracy theories and claims about the president'south Autonomous opponent, Joe Biden, and his family. That'due south only become more intense in contempo weeks. What Trick News does and reports volition frame events for its viewers and his most loyal supporters, especially if results are close or favor Biden.
Its coverage is to be presented Tuesday evening by figures from its news side, including political anchor Bret Baier and anchor Martha MacCallum — both of whom tend to be sympathetic to Trump just grounded in news — and Fox News Sunday host Chris Wallace, one of the network'south most straight-ahead journalists. Its polling and decision desk operations are highly respected. Trump has expended a lot of time trashing Fox'south polls. Even when he appears on Play a trick on News. Peculiarly then.
There's no meliorate example of that than on election nighttime 2012 when Republican strategist and then-Play a trick on News pundit Karl Rove refused to believe the network'due south projection that GOP nominee Manus Romney would lose Ohio. Pull a fast one on's then-star host Megyn Kelly strode down the corridor from the studio, camera trailing her every footstep, to the decision desk, which calmly explained its conclusions that President Barack Obama had won the state.
A Fox News colleague told me this calendar week that cypher was left to take a chance. And Kelly confirmed for me that her televised walk — though not her confrontation with Rove — had been carefully choreographed in advance, only in instance.
Back in 2000, The Lord's day had assigned a quondam international exchange fellow working in New York City, Deborah Bach, to embed with Flim-flam's decision desk-bound to provide color for our reporting. Amid those on Trick's desk at the time was John Ellis — George W. Bush's kickoff cousin. Later that week, The New Yorker reported Ellis had been the one to make the network'southward fateful Florida telephone call for Bush.
Rob Zimmerman, then a spokesman for Fox News, pressured me to become Bach, so at just the start of her career, to participate in a briefing phone call with reporters from other newsrooms to disabuse them of the idea that Fox had let Bush-league'south cousin make that kind of weighty determination.
The two problems with his idea: Bach had left just before 2 a.k., that is, earlier Fox projected Bush the winner, considering she had had to get upward early on for her new job. And Ellis had boasted to her that the determination would be his to make. ("That was such a crazy time," Zimmerman said Tuesday. "I have no recollection of that, which doesn't mean it didn't happen." Bach also says she is now hazy on the specifics.)
Fox's decision to bestow Florida, and hence the election, to Bush had a ripple outcome on other networks and on how many Americans interpreted what had transpired. The way they understood it, a win had been taken away from the Republican.
It may all work smoothly this time around. The polls may hum efficiently. The candidates may acquit themselves. The media may show civic responsibleness.
For ballot night 2020, Fox (along with others) promises restraint. And I promise they're right.
Back on Election Day 2000, for the first fourth dimension, the media were one of the main stories for the night, and not for good reasons. The Lord's day was one of the lucky ones. We'd detest to relive the infamy of that night this calendar week.
Source: https://www.npr.org/2020/11/03/930828092/i-covered-medias-2000-election-night-fiasco-please-let-s-not-do-that-again
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