Dereliction Of Duty:
The Media And Election 2000
politics, elections, news media, bias, left wing, scandal
by Alan F. Kay
Election Night for the U.S. media is like the final lap of a long horse race. After months of sports-like coverage of the great dramatic contest between the top competitors and their teams, the media — especially TV news — go for a high-ratings night of number counting, colorful graphs and a decisive ending: the horses crossing the finish line.
It's the final act for campaign commentators who have dominated the airwaves for months. Each of the major networks puts together a team of experts in all aspects of vote counting, including pollsters, academics, exhausted campaign pundits, savvy party members and a new breed who manage and comment on the running tally displays — Election Night specialists. This year the TV-news approach collapsed. The media 'experts' vapid play-by-play turned Election Night into a fiasco.