Election night coverage by the networks: hearing before the Committee on Energy and Commerce, One Hundred Seventh Congress, first session

OCLC Number: (OCoLC)47933882 Subject: Elections -- United States. Excerpt: ...others in the 1980's. What follows is a chart that includes some of the quotations of that era from the members of the committees who actually held hearings. I call your attention, for example, to the chairman of the 1984 House hearings, Representative Timothy Worth of Colorado. His quote, which will go up in a minute, is that ``The evidence is overwhelming from our perspective, at least my own, that there is a responsibility that when you report early people do not vote,' he goes on to talk about the early calls made then. Ed Markey, my good friend in 1980, who sponsored and pushed forward legislation for a uniform poll closing time, was quoted as saying ``Then your interest in Election Day is not building an audience.' I am saying another philosophy takes over. It has something to do with projecting the winner. It becomes a race for the networks, for the news departments on Election Day. And there are quotes on this chart you can examine from Bob Matsui and John Glenn, who is a Senator, who was also testifying at those hearings. Our good friend Nancy Pelosi from California is quoted saying ``As an organization person I can tell you that the early projections had a very deleterious effect on the morale and actual voting that occurred.' So we have statements in these hearings going back in the 1980's about the problem that occurred with early calls in the 1980's. If you'll also, however, look at the next chart, you will see that we were not alone in criticizing the use of exit polling. The networks themselves were criticizing the use of exit polling and were questioning whether exit polling was in fact a valuable tool or a dangerous tool. You'll see quotes from none other than Walter Cronkite suggesting that exit polling was a dangerous tool, from the head of CBS announcing that this was not something that networks ought to be doing beca...