CNN vows caution in calling 2004 races

Jan. 6, 2004  |  LOS ANGELES (AP) -- CNN anchorman Wolf Blitzer made an election year prediction: The news channel will be a model of caution in using exit polls to call races.

"If we're not confident a million percent we got it right we're not going to go on the air. ... We're going to wait and wait and wait," Blitzer told a meeting Tuesday of the Television Critics Association. "Only when we have every reason to believe that this is a done deal will we go on and make that exit-poll projection."

In 2000, flawed information led TV networks to prematurely call the presidential election. Voter News Service, created by major news organizations to count votes and conduct surveys, subsequently was disbanded.

Instead, ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, Fox News Channel and The Associated Press signed a contract with two veteran polling experts to conduct exit surveys during the 2004 presidential election.

http://www.salon.com/news/wire/2004/01/06/cnn/index.html

And he is too smart so stop saying that!

to shrub....but now they show one 20+ down a day later..

it was flawed voting machines.

The exit polls were correct in showing that Gore was carrying Florida handily.

The pre-election polls in the 2002 run-offs were also correct in predicting heavy Dem wins. Funny how they all reversed the day of the vote and gave the Repubs heavy wins. Just magic, I guess.

I mean, don't ever take the numbers for granted. You never know what might happen all of a sudden, unexpected...if it looks like Bush may not have a second term, that is.

If it looks comfortably like he will win, feel free to correctly predict.

Signed,
Karl Rove

we'll have no way of knowing what the results really are. There were no flawed results in 2000. The exit polling indicated correctly that people intended to vote for Al Gore in very large numbers, but the "butterfly ballot" made it nearly impossible to cast a vote for him. Flawed information my hairy rear end!

that's what he's really saying

until they exhaust all efforts to win. If the computer voting doesn't do it they have a backup plan and that will take a while to get into place so the news can't say Bush wins until the election is officially stolen.

who are these "veteran polling experts?"

Will other news orgs shut out of this (i.e. NYT, WSJ, NPR, etc.) get together to provide "alternative"?
Prob not a bad idea.

With his wretched God-told-me-Bush-would-win routine.

And to think the exit polls probably had it right, last time.

God fucked up?

fraud-made-easy machines predetermine.

still work for Fox? John Ellis, I mean ... Dubya's first cousin, who was responsible for calling the "winner" for Fox News.

I'm sure the BFEE will make sure some squirrelly family member is involved in some network's election decision team in Nov. 2004.

With the head of Diebold voting machine co. saying he's going to "deliver the vote" for Dubya ... and Jebby-Poo still in Fla. governorship, and god-knows-which BFEE cretin behind the scenes at the networks ... well, they'll have another election theft all set to go.

Oh, and they'll have Ah-nuld to pummel and grope the votes out of citizens in Cal-ee-fore-nee-ya.

"We will continue to whore for bu$h with every breath we take."

What Wolf's statement means to me is that he, at least, is afraid that bu$h may come out on the losing end this time! I love the smell of media fear in the morning...

:argh:
dbt

and will not report on Diebold, and will continue to trash democratic candidates, especially the final nominee insuring a win for Bush in 04

The networks have made these kinds of promises before and quietly weaseled out of them by october. The more that I think about it I think the RNC protestors in New York should make CNN and FOX targets as well.

... and still claim they're adhering to the 'policy we set out a year before the election to ensure accuracy ...' :puke:


:hippie:

I don't believe I actually ever saw them project the West Virginia Senate race (Rockefeller (D) won handily).