In “Revamping the way TV covers Election Day,” Ken Bode lays out the problems of TV Election Night coverage (Commentary, Jan. 10). I agree that the mistakes of the networks on Election Night 2000 were frustrating to viewers, but I don’t believe that should stop the media from reporting immediate election results.
The best solution to the problem is for the networks to show the viewers exactly what they, the reporters, see. Each time a state closes its polls, the media should show the actual raw votes from the state. Then, based on their exit polls, they should “predict” rather than “call” the states.
This would allow the viewer to look at the hard data and decide for themselves if Candidate A has enough votes to beat Candidate B.
We didn’t see this kind of coverage until late on Election Night 2000. In the end, viewers and reporters alike were glued to their televisions watching the raw Florida votes trickle in. That’s the way it should be.
But it seems the networks feel obligated to “call” the states for their viewers.
