Posted November. 02, 2004 23:14,
We agreed to be accurate, not to be the first.
So claimed NBC News Vice President Bill Wheatley in an interview with Sunday Telegraph on October 31. He explained the reasons behind the National Election Pool that the six networksABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, and FOX News Channeland the Associated Press (AP) had agreed to jointly announce the election results.
U.S. television networks, which are notorious for intense breaking-news competition, have chosen accuracy over speed in the 2004 U.S. presidential election. The reason is because this years election is expected to be an unprecedented and unpredictable razor-thin race. Networks are also taking precautions such as forming a consortium to avoid repeating past mistakes including the disastrous false reports of many newspapers and television networks in the 2000 election.
Reporting on the vote count in the dawn of November 3, 2000, ABCs Peter Jennings rashly asserted viewers that candidate George W. Bush will be the next president and waited uneasily for the final winner to be decided. CBS also reported that Democratic Party candidate Al Gore was the winner in Florida and had to air an embarrassing correction report.
This year, the Associated Press will be the sole provider of election results for the U.S. Senate and state governor elections as well as the presidential election. Up until the 2000 and 2002 elections, two institutions were responsible for election results until problems arose, and the AP seized monopolistic coverage this year
The National Election Pool is planning to report exit polls results surveyed by Mitofsky International and Edison Media Research. In addition, states under different time zones will not receive voting results until voting ballots are closed. Florida, in 2000, went into chaos when exit polls results were reported before votes were finalized in the northwestern U.S.
ABC decided not to conduct exit polls if the difference between the two candidates polls remained under one percent.