By
Lora J. Mackel
In response to the utter lack of litigation over the Florida vote, four western Floridians are now suing television networks for calling the state for Gore before all the state's polling places had closed. These voters, whose counties were in a central time zone, allege that they were influenced not to cast their ballots for Bush because they thought Gore had the state of Florida. Though this case only involves four voters, it brings up a very important topic: media responsibility in electoral coverage. Last week's election coverage by the major networks and the cable news channels was seriously lacking in professionalism and careful research. In the future, if the media cannot regulate their own election coverage, it might be necessary for regulations to be put forth by another party.
To be sure, last week's election was not typical. But its irregularity served to highlight the flaws in the way networks and cable television cover presidential elections. Instead of being concerned with the effect their coverage would have on the electorate, these stations covered the elections as though they were in the middle of sweeps. That is to say, the networks were promoting their election coverage as though they were unveiling a new episode of "Survivor" and not a serious and important issue like the election.
And when election coverage is marketed as if it was another sitcom, network drives for rating interfere with the accuracy and proficiency that are suppose to be the guiding principals of journalistic ethics. Basically, to be the first station to "call" a state for a candidate was to score a major ratings coup. Accuracy became secondary to viewership, and the integrity of the coverage suffered. On election night alone, the networks made three major mistakes, the worst of which was declaring Bush the official winner of the election before they went off the air.
When these networks were forced to admit to their mistakes, such as calling Florida for Gore before all Florida's polls were closed, they admitted them glibly as though they had committed a minor faux pas. This is another problem with election coverage: the tone. Each channel was promising, " the most complete, up to date coverage," but all feeding off the same faulty information. They had consultants ranging from the so called "average" voter to constitutional lawyers. Dan Rather, for his part, thought he would enliven his coverage by calling the match as though he were an emcee for the WWF. If at anytime the phrase "media circus," was applicable, it was last Tuesday night.
Cable news channels and network news will claim, in their defense, that they are just trying to provide the fastest coverage to their viewers, because that is what their viewers demand. If they react in this way, as they have in the past, they will continue to ignore their responsibility. The media has forgotten how powerful it is. And with such power comes greater responsibility. They can no longer act like the average producer. But whether they are regulated by themselves, or by an outside force remains to be seen.
What not many Americans know is that new channels are given their airwaves for free, but under certain FCC conditions. These conditions stipulate that the airwaves be used for the common good, such as providing election coverage. Perhaps if enough demands are made on these channels, they will be allowed to suspend all commercials for the election night, thus eliminating the frenzied need for viewership. This would free them up to provide a much more balanced election coverage. There might also be a fine imposed on networks for calling a state when polls are still open in it.
Any hope for reform is seriously dampened in the face of the powerful television lobbies. These groups have resisted reform many times in the past, and are all to ready to invoke the First Amendment when they feel their freedom is threatened. Our nation cannot, however, cannot tolerate threats to its freedom done by irresponsible election coverage. Many things that happened last week should never have happened, but did. Not only did Americans realize it has an outdated electoral system, it also learned that its press is far behind on how to fairly and accurately cover it.
Hopefully, in the face of these newfound concerns, America will embark on an electoral reform period. To be truly effective, any reform would have to call on the media to perform better than they did last week.
