The way that polls of the presidential election are looking the news media may face an interesting decision next Tuesday. Several battleground states lie on the east coast, for example Florida and Virginia. If Senator Obama wins either of these states he has effectively won; just winning one of these combined with states in which he has lead of over ten percentage points would put him over 270 electoral votes. Virginia's voting closes at 7:00 p.m. eastern time, a long time before the polls close on the west coast or in competitive states such as Nevada or Colorado. With exit polling the national news agencies could have a very good idea of who is winning the state well before the polls close.
So when will they call it? Certainly journalists remember the 2000 race in which some stations mistakenly called the election for Al Gore due to flawed exit polls in Florida, so journalists will likely only call a state if it is far from close. Beyond this though, journalists might consider the ramifications of calling the election before all voting is closed. If the media declares that Obama has effectively won the election before many citizens have voted, there is little doubt that many of these people will decide not to vote at all. After all, why bother if the election is already determined? While this could cause both Obama as well as McCain supporters to abstain from voting, I imagine it may effect a larger number of McCain supporters. This could have a tremendous effect on races downticket. Senate races in Oregon and Texas are very close and could easily be effected by less voters from one party or another showing up to vote. I am sure that we can all agree that having less people show up to vote, and this possibly changing other races, would be a bad thing. Understanding this, journalists may have to make a difficult decision come election day.
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2 comments:
You makae a good point especially because it seems like most news stations are already calling the election. Most always there are those in the media over anxious to say who won maybe to be the fist to say it I dont really know, but journalism defenitly has an obligation to democracy and I would like to see them refrain from an early verdict and maybe even some encouragment to vote come election day.
That's true. Also another thing I've been thinking about, is that maybe people might vote for Obama just becuase they think he's sure to win, so they might as well go along with the bandwagon. We probably will never know the full effects journalists have on the actions and opinions of others, so it's important for journalists to be selective in what they call and share with the public.
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