Cox, others question election coverage

Alex Coolman and S.J. Cahn

Rep. Christopher Cox on Thursday slammed media coverage of the

nation’s presidential election as one of three congressmen calling for a

House investigation into whether the reports were biased.

Cox (R-Newport Beach) spoke along with Congressmen Cliff Stearns

(R-Florida) and Billy Tauzin (R-Louisiana), the chairman of the House

Commerce subcommittee on telecommunications.

The three were critical of early, incorrect calls in the television

networks’ election night coverage. By initially suggesting that Vice

President Al Gore had captured Florida, Cox said during a press

conference on CNN, the networks may have tweaked voter turnout in

California and throughout the West against Texas Gov. George W. Bush.

“Voter depression follows from knowledge that the race is over,” he

said. “[That is] what motivates our concern about early calls.”

Tauzin told CNN he believed the election calls were not merely a

coincidence but reflected a “very disturbing” bias on the part of the

news media.

But those election mistakes were clearly just that -- mistakes, said

Terry Francke of the California First Amendment Coalition.

“The notion that they did that deliberately or somehow in concert or

stupefying coincidence is patently absurd,” he said.

Francke pointed out that the networks now rely on the Voter News

Service for their exit polls and initial election returns rather than

producing their own reports.

The TV misinformation is comparable to several newspapers all running

a single, incorrect news service story, he said.

Francke also dismissed the idea that the reports would have quelled

any voters’ plans to go to the polls, pointing out that only someone

intent on voting just for president would have been stopped by the news.

Mark Petracca, chairman of UCI’s political science department, agreed

that there is “no evidence” that the call affected turnout.

“Nothing was settled by the calling of Florida,” he said. “That didn’t

mean anything.”

He did acknowledge, however, that the competition among the networks

“drives them to take risks.”

Petracca also suggested that the polling the networks received was

right if, in fact, a number of Gore supporters failed to cast their

ballots correctly.

“Lots of people, when they came out of the polling place, said ‘I

voted for Al Gore,’ ” Petracca said. “But when they were in the voting

booth, something happened.

“I’m willing to bet that the hand count for the entire state will

confirm the exit poll results.”

Nevertheless, the subcommittee on telecommunications may hold hearings

on the subject of the media’s coverage as soon as December, said Fraser

Traverse, press secretary for Cox. But she said it is more likely that

the subject will be taken up in January.

Cox said he was eager for the hearings to improve coverage of future

elections.

“I hope that we can all learn something from this,” he said. “The

hearing that our committee is going to hold will be opened long after

this immediate problem is solved, long after the presidential race is

decided.”

Francke said he doubted the public would take up the charge against

the networks.

“I think it would be troubling and really an enormous waste of

resources for the committee to start calling hearings,” Francke said. “I

think [the American people] would greet any systematic congressional

investigation as a terrible and misdirected waste of the time of the

Congress.”