Network heads promising better election coverage

WASHINGTON -- Television's chief executives are going before Congress Wednesday morning to explain how they plan to fix the vote-counting system that led to their embarrassing miscalls in the Florida presidential election. They also are expected to ask Congress to establish a uniform poll-closing time for the nation.

The heads of five networks -- ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN and Fox -- and The Associated Press and Voter News Service are testifying Wednesday before the House Energy and Commerce Committee on why they all proclaimed Al Gore the winner in Florida, then hours later the networks prematurely gave Florida and the nation to George W. Bush.

Committee Chairman Billy Tauzin, R-Lousiana, says the networks used "clearly flawed data models and clearly biased statistical results" and, by awarding Florida's key 25 electoral votes to Gore early in the evening of November 7, may have influenced voter turnout in Western states where polls were still open.

Tauzin has also praised the networks for individually commissioning reports on what led to what analysts for CNN called an election coverage "debacle."

Those reports reached similar conclusions that the early error in declaring Gore the winner stemmed from vote tabulating problems by Voter News Service, the consortium formed in 1993 by the networks and AP to conduct exit polling and count actual votes.

VNS, by its own admissions, underestimated the number of absentee votes, had trouble reconciling discrepancies between exit polls and actual votes and used inappropriate past models in analyzing voter trends.

They found that the decision by the networks, but not the AP, to declare Bush the winner of Florida and the president-elect early in the morning of Nov. 8 in part came from a computer problem in Volusia County that mistakenly subtracted thousands of votes from Gore.

"This election exposed flaws in the American voting system, imperfections mirrored in television's coverage of the election results," CBS News said in its report.

CNN's analysts, in a highly critical report, said television interfered with the electoral process. "In our opinion, that constitutes an abuse of power, if unintentionally so, by CNN and by all the mainstream television news operations," their analysis said.

The networks have stressed, and Tauzin has agreed, that there is no evidence of political bias in how winners were called in Florida and other states. They have agreed to accept many of the recommendations in the reports, including not projecting winners until all the polls in a state are closed, having VNS update its technology and using AP and other second sources to confirm VNS results.

CNN said it would not call races where the margin between candidates is less than 1 percent. ABC said it would insulate its decision-makers from what competing networks are saying and make sure viewers understand how it makes predictions.

There was also wide support among the networks for legislation being proposed by Tauzin and Rep. Ed Markey, D-Mass., that would set a uniform poll-closing time for the nation.

"ABC News continues to support a uniform national poll-closing time. We also support efforts to reform balloting processes to enable faster and more reliable tabulation and reporting of vote totals," ABC said in its report.

Copyright 2001 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

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