| Bush Wins, Gore Wins: Analyzing the Premature Media Coverage of the 2000 Presidential Election Over the dishes clanging and the voices mingling, I find myself conversing with three well-versed people about the results of the most recent presidential election. I have held this dinner party to persuade people to come and share in discourse with those who have common interests and goals in mind. In particular, I am interested in learning more about the views of these three specific people: Peter Bart, Kelly Patricia O�Meara, and Neil Hickey. Bart is a writer for Variety, a news division of Reed Elsevier Incorporation, who analyzed the media coverage of the 2000 presidential election. O�Meara is journalist for Insight on the News magazine, which is owned by News World Communications. She analyzes the main network�s coverage of the same election. Also, Hickey expresses his ideas about the Bush/Gore election in Columbia Journalism Review, a magazine published by the school of journalism at Columbia University. They each express an enormous amount of concern and interest over the media coverage of the election two years past. The view of Bart can be summed up in the phrase, �The Election From Hell.� O�Meara describes it as �Media Culpas,� and Hickey understands it to be, �The Big Mistake.� It is clear these individuals have a bone to pick with the media regarding the Bush/Gore election. |
| While conversing with these three fine individuals, it is evident they want to discuss what went wrong when the Voters News Service began reporting results. Bart interjects that as if people weren�t cynical enough about the media, this premature news reporting gives the public one more reason to complain about the effects of media. As an additive, Hickey responds by saying it is the worst call in history made by the news stations. O�Meara agrees strongly and labels it as a blunder, which the networks will have to overcome with time. We are all in agreement that the media must regain our confidence and respect in their ability to correctly and accurately relay information to us as viewers. After all, the media are how we gain knowledge about events such as election results. The question in all of our minds is, �What comes first? Accuracy or speed?� Does the media even care if what they are producing is accurate anymore or are they only concerned about being the first to leak it? While listening and interacting in this group discourse, I began to analyze each person�s particular viewpoint and fetishes. Peter Bart from Variety, is very passionate about this topic and expresses his deep aggression toward that of the media and their poor coverage. One of his arguments is as follows: We�ve learned that all the networks were basing their voter projections on the same pathetic puddle of data. We�ve learned that the bozo who first called the election for Bush on the Fox News Channel was essentially working for the Bush campaign. (Bart 1) You can almost feel the amount of distress and satire Bart expresses just through the words he uses such as pathetic and bozo. The pathos characteristic of Bart is shown in his tone because he is very emotional about this topic. To go along with his argument, Bart relays the story of John Ellis. Supposedly, Ellis is a cousin of the Bush family who is reported to allegedly have exchanged exit poll information with his family during the election process (3). The question remains: How far will people go? |
| In addition, Bart explains the ridiculous step that Representative Billy Tauzin (R-La) is taking to punish the media. Tauzin is a Republican representing the House Commerce Committee and wishes to bring the networks before the committee to complain about their �liberal bias� in this particular news coverage (3). The next analysis I made was on the conversation between myself and that of Columbia Journalism Review�s Neil Hickey. The media made �a stupefying hash�, according to Hickey (1). The time the media took to cover and �call� these results was just not enough. Something that ended up taking thirty-five days of review, mysteriously only took the networks mere minutes to report (1). Hickey questions the credibility of the networks reporting. The following timeline was discussed by Hickey in regard to the false knowledge reported by the networks: 7 PM (EST)�Polls close in the majority of Florida counties 8 PM�Fox, CBS, ABC, NBC, CNN, and The Associated Press members� hand the presidency to Gore 9:55 PM�All networks begin retracting the Gore �call� 2:16 AM�Fox projects Bush as the winner in Florida, and within minutes the rest of the above networks follow suit 4 AM�Networks finally retract the Bush �call� and declare the race in limbo (1). Hickey expresses his frustration over the media coverage and explains that VNS made a few errors. They did not take into account the unexpected rise in absentee votes and they overestimated the black vote, while simultaneously underestimating the Cuban vote. Both mistakes made would have improved the chance of Gore�s success (3). Newspapers were mislead as well when the networks misreported the Bush �call� and reports that Gore had called and conceded the race to Bush (7). |
| The ethos of Hickey is presented because personal traits of Hickey�s character can be picked up in the discussion. He pays strong attention to detail and shows his discontent in the networks credibility. Hickey specifically remembers Dan Rather�s comment on the night of the election, ��a hip-hip hooray and a big Texas howdy to the new president�sip it, savor it, cup it, photostat it, underline it in red, press it in a book, put it in an album, hang it on the wall: George W. Bush is the next president of the United States� (2). Hickey explained that this was a cut-and-dry way to inform the public that this result was actually true. However, it is still difficult to believe those same people that just wrongly informed the public a moment ago. Hickey recalls a CNN poll where it is clear there was a loss of trust in viewers. Seventy-nine percent of Americans said the networks did not act �responsibly� that night (8). Lastly, the discussion held with Kelly O�Meara was entertaining. She jokingly reported that Al Gore won, lost, conceded, and withdrew his concession to George Bush, or at least, he was reported of having done all of the above (1). Her ethos is picked up as being sarcastic and finding humor in mistakes. Apparently unknown to many people, Florida is divided into two times zones in which voters vote. Before the heavily Republican-voting Central zone polls even closed, a Gore victory was announced (2). O�Meara stated her disbelief that reporters and networks did not take this into consideration before making a judgment. This premature judgment led other networks to report using the same false data, which in turn may have dissuaded voters from going to the polls if there was apparently already a clear winner (6). NBC was the biggest culprit, according to O�Meara, because they announced the Gore win and at the time had the most viewers, totaling eighteen million. This fact frustrates O�Meary because it is possible not everyone who was going to vote did because of the premature reports. |