The Shameful Election Coverage by Fox News
“Why
can we call the Democrats taking the House this early?” Fox News anchor
Bret Baier asked analyst Chris Stirewalt. “Because we’re just that
good,” Stirewalt replied with a proud smirk.
That
just about sums up Fox’s election coverage of the 2018 midterms. It was
a self-indulgent display of self-promotion, bickering, and
irresponsibility as the entire House was called before polls in the
western part of the country had even closed. One has to wonder how many
people were deterred from voting when they heard Republicans had already
lost the House.
There was a
time when news media covered elections without needing to be the first
horse out of the gate with results. Reporters would patiently wait for
polls to close, for the numbers to be tallied, and for a clear winner to
be tabulated. That changed with exit polling and guesses about whether
these reflected what really happened inside the voting booths.
Last
night, Fox News jumped the shark. They had a new system they claimed
would deliver unprecedented accuracy -- they used voters’ surveys along
with the AP’s race results to predict outcomes. With this methodology,
they called the House before anyone else -- to the anger of many
viewers.
