On Thu, Nov 8, 2012 at 12:47 AM, Kevin M. <[email protected]> wrote:
> > On Wed, Nov 7, 2012 at 10:59 PM, Jim Ellwanger <[email protected]>wrote: > >> On Nov 7, 2012, at 9:05 PM, Kevin M. wrote: >> >> > Fifteen minutes after the last poll closed, Obama was declared the >> winner. Which means -- connecting the dots -- the media withheld >> information it had, lied about information it didn't have, and refused to >> accept information despite verification. >> >> So you're saying the networks should have, for example, announced that >> Obama would win California the second they went on the air at 7:00 Eastern? >> >> If a journalist knows something and elects to not report it, I have a > serious problem with that. Barring national security or some other > compromising situation, a journalist reports what he/she knows. I know I'm > down on this election process and the media's coverage of it, but setting > aside my own political view, we have a serious problem when the outcome of > 42 states are known days if not weeks in advance, but only one statistician > (who doesn't do much more than basic math but gets lauded for it, which is > in itself a sad testimony of where we stand) mentioned it in a blog which > then gets buried amongst other speculative polling data (yes, tying > Silver's thread to this one). The only reason not to report on election > results as they are known is because someone thinks it is important to get > the highest voter turnout possible, but nobody has ever cogently explained > why. If 98% of Californians vote, we still get the same electoral votes if > 25% of Californians vote. Meaning before we've even gone to the polls, our > votes are meaningless, so why not report what is known when it is known? > (SNIP) > Kevin, I am really not following your point here - perhaps I have mislead you. The Networks did report Nate Silver's *prediction* about the election, they just did not put much stock in it, or give it much prominence, and instead chose to describe the election as too close to call. This was not because of any potential impact on voting in any state, but (IMO) simply to drive up viewer interest and their own ratings. States do not release any real votes until the polls have closed in their state - so there is literally nothing to report about a state's vote until their polls close. Various news organizations to their own exit interviews, but obviously these are not actual votes. The networks do release some descriptive information about the electorate from this data (when the first exit polls showed only 73% white voters, I knew it would be a good night for Blue, as long as those numbers held up). But the networks do not release actual candidate preferences from the exit polls before the polls close in a state. This may in part be part of an agreement they have made to not influence voter turnout (but if so, this is not to hurt or help any particular outcome, it would be an agreement that would be the same in all states, regardless of which candidate or proposition it might effect). But this is really only an issue in "Battleground States", where the outcome is in some doubt. Nobody needed an exit poll to know who California, or Texas, was going to vote for last night. But in Battleground States - by definition those states in which the outcome is not pre-ordained, the exit poll predictions about candiate preferences are not valid until they have been checked against certain benchmark counties. Early exit poll data, which has not been confirmed in this way, is worse than useless - it is often misleading. You may recall that in 2004 early exit poll data was released on the internet and the rumors spread widely that Kerry had won. This in turn led to widespread perception on the part of many (many) Democrats that Bush had stolen the election when later actual votes proved the early exit polls wrong (as they not uncommonly are). I was monitoring 4 news sources on television last night, and I believe they all called California for Obama within minutes (perhaps 1 minute) of the polls closing there - all they need to do, and they may have this pre-programmed into a computer, is check a few returns from a few key counties and check it against their predictions and benchmarks, and if everything is as expected, they make the routine call. All of the networks did this every hour (sometimes half hour) that polls closed in each state. Almost always the only states that were not called within minutes of the polls closing were the Battleground States - there were a few that lagged longer, I presume because the vote counting in the key counties was slower than expected. So, I don't think your premise (that Fox called some states faster than others) is correct, nor do I think that any TV news operation delayed reporting actual votes in order to increase voter turnout, nor do I think that any TV news operation delayed reporting valid predictions of state voting from exit polls in any state where the outcome was not already known. -- TV or Not TV .... The Smartest (TV) People! You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "TV or Not TV" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/tvornottv?hl=en
