Inside the glass house: by Thalif Deen

12th November 2000

Whoever wins, media lose

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NEW YORK — A sacred rule in newspaper reporting religiously enshrined in journalism schools throughout the United States reads: Even if your mother says she loves you, double-check the story.

That perhaps is a cynical but ultimate test in accuracy in newspaper reporting.

But most newspapermen are inherent gamblers. They take chances, and occasionally, end up with egg on their faces.

Last week's media fiasco over the US presidential elections is an example of the fierce competitiveness that can force newspapers and television networks to outscoop each other only to find their judgements far too hasty.

As was evident last week, some of the major newspapers in the US stuck their necks out with banner headlines which later proved erroneous.

The headline in the New York Post read: "BUSH WINS", the Miami Herald "BUSH WINS IT" and the St Louis-Post Despatch "BUSH WINS A THRILLER".

The Washington Times changed its headlines three different times: "PRESIDENT BUSH", to "DOWN TO THE WIRE," to "NO PRESIDENT YET."

The news anchors and the headline writers first gave the win to the Republican candidate George W. Bush, then switched to Democratic candidate and Vice President Al Gore, and then finally declared that neither had won.

"We just don't have egg on our face, we have an omelet," Tom Brokaw, TV anchor for the National Broadcasting Company (NBC), was quoted as saying.

With the political fortunes of Bush and Gore fluctuating from one fleeting moment to another, Washington Post columnist Mary McGrory captured the scene accurately.

At 7:50 election night, she said, Al Gore was declared the winner. But he lasted as the potential president-elect for about 2 hours and 25 minutes.

"He probably was rearranging the furniture in the Oval Office in his head before he was rudely kicked out of office, so to speak, by new figures," she added.

The world's most powerful democracy was in trouble— embarrassed by an electoral system in which the man who got the most popular votes in a presidential election really loses the office.

"Fraud Suspected in the United States," said a headline in a Mexican newspaper.

At the United Nations, several Third World diplomats whose countries have been accused of manipulating elections, were watching from the sidelines the accusations and counter-accusations of "voting irregularities" in the state of Florida, as the story was unfolding by the hour.

"I cannot believe this is happening in a country which has always demanded free and fair elections from us," an African diplomat confessed rather sarcastically.

"Perhaps the UN should have sent election monitors and international observers to Florida" he said, the state where the presidential election remains in the balance.

Some of the politicians in the US are blaming the media for jumping the gun with erroneous election results and creating a political impasse.

But the electoral deadlock in Florida is likely to lead to a constitutional crisis in a country which is sharply divided between Bush and Gore as was evident in the election results.

The premature declaration of a Bush victory also led to a diplomatic fiasco as several countries, including China, India, Indonesia and Japan, rushed with congratulatory messages.

Indian Foreign Minister Jaswant Singh was quoted as saying that New Delhi was "delighted and would wish to congratulate Governor George Bush, president-elect."

Even British Foreign Secretary Robin Cook extended his congratulations to Bush no sooner he heard the news of his premature victory on television networks.

One newspaper, rather appropriately, declared Bush "winner-by-network."

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