When does an individual’s ignorance become their own fault and not attributable to some other entity, like the media, the city council or the U.S. Congress?

I didn’t hear the executives from the country’s top television stations raise that question last week during their testimony before Congress about miscalling the election on Nov. 7, but that is what they should have been asking those on the congressional panel who were grilling them.

Look, there are not many of us in the print journalism business who like to defend television news anchors (I find it difficult to call them journalists) for their blunders. More often than newspapers, television news shows succumb to the pitfalls of competition, which leaves them wide open for making egregious errors. By catering to the fading attention span of those who rely on television for almost all of their information, the news programs are partly to blame for sound bytes having become the de facto political speeches or debates of our age.

So when one of the networks started calling Al Gore the winner in Florida on that memorable election night, the others, fearful of losing viewers or of simply not being first, followed lemming-like and made the same announcement - Al Gore had won Florida.

Last week’s congressional hearings, called by committee chairman Rep. Billy Tauzin (R-La.), were supposed to examine the statistical models used by the networks to “call” the votes on election night, models the congressman originally said favored the Democrats. Early in the hearings, however, Tauzin said there was no evidence of intentional bias toward any candidate.

The congressmen exacted a promise from the television people that they would not call any state until all the polls in that state were closed. Discussion also led to support of a bill already introduced to make poll closing times uniform around the country.

The mistakes made by the media on election night were embarrassing and even comical, but there was little discussion about whether the calling of the states by the networks actually affected the outcome of the vote. Does a voter in California driving late to the polls change his or her mind because Tom Brokaw says one candidate or another has already won that state?

And what about the responsibility of the voter? That is a story that got some attention in the post-election coverage, but it was mainly about whether butterfly ballots were understandable or that the location of some polling places and some arcane procedures discouraged voters who work long hours and aren’t very educated. These, however, are procedural problems that can be corrected by new laws and public relations efforts.

There are two issues that the congressmen were addressing when they asked the networks to refrain from calling states early. One is a basic First Amendment right of free speech, and the other one is the less tangible dictum of acting responsibly.

The free speech issue seems relatively clear cut. I don’t think many courts would uphold an edict from Congress that prevented television news shows from saying who they thought had won a state as soon as they could make a reliable, statistical prediction. That kind of statistical guesswork occurs all over the planet, aided by the calculating abilities of today’s computers.

The other issue is more pertinent. Almost everyone in the news business has been confronted with a story or two where they had to make choices about what needed to be reported. Most reporters will tell you that there are stories that lack impact and detail because they knew some things but that they couldn’t verify them, or they chose not to include them because their sensational nature might have taken away from the real point of the story. In this scenario, we must ask if the television news shows really need to predict states, if in using what are almost always reliable models they are influencing national elections. That has not been proven, but if evidence emerges that it does occur, then perhaps they should voluntarily refrain.

But what about the responsibility of the voter, of the citizen? Is “protecting” us from receiving information that is readily available really what big corporations (the networks) and big government are supposed to do? Shouldn’t people who are given the right to vote be expected to know some things, including the fact that exit polls, despite our technology, can be wrong. Shouldn’t we expect that most people at least have the brains to know that some “news” shows are driven more by ratings than responsibility.

Last week at a land-use meeting in Waynesville, one attendee began to question the vision statement prepared by a task force. His problem was something along these lines: How can you be so presumptuous as to come up with this statement and then say it is my vision, the vision for all of the town’s residents? The meetings where it was hammered out, however, were all open to the public. The steering committee members were known to all. In other words, if he wanted to be involved and take part, the chance was there. To cry foul after ignoring all these meetings left his argument full of holes. You can’t have it both ways.

And that is the crux of the “calling the states” debate now before Congress. Voters, too, must be responsible for something. If we start serving up only the information we think people should have, we are moving dangerously close to the kind of censorship I think most Americans abhor. We need to be careful what lessons we take from Florida.

(Scott McLeod can be reached at info@smokymountainnews.com)

 

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