Journalism

Benjamin Craig Matthews of Mountain Home, Ark., was taken into custody Tuesday and remains jailed on $15,000 bond. Matthews faces multiple counts of making terrorist threats and harassing communications.

The ratings firm said Wednesday that 36.1 million people watched midterm election results on TV, a whopping 59% increase over the last midterms in 2014. For the last midterm election during Barack Obama’s presidency, an estimated 22.7 million people watched the counting. Nielsen said it was the largest midterm election audience dating back to 2002. Fox News Channel led the way with 7.78 million viewers.

Hours after an on-air confrontation Wednesday between President Trump and Jim Acosta, the CNN reporter has been “suspended” from the White House “until further notice.”

Fox News Channel was the big winner in the cable news ratings battle Tuesday night. Just like the Rupert Murdoch-owned outlet did in the 2014 midterm elections, FNC wiped the small screen floor with rivals CNN and MSNBC plus ABC, CBS and NBC proper when it came to where most Americans turned for results and more on election night.

The midterm election coverage began with intimations that the Democrats might unleash a “blue wave.” It proceeded, in early evening, with James Carville soberly declaring on MSNBC, “It’s not going to be a wave election.” It ended, after a re-reversal of the narrative, with cable news panels arguing over what the definition of “wave” is.

Technology and a fascination with how the nation will proceed under President Trump has quickly pushed the news outlets to rework themselves for a new era. As more consumers get their first headlines from social media and smartphone alerts, news executives need to consider streaming mobile video as well as cable schedules and the evening news, all the better to compete in new ways against media outlets with roots in print that were once regarded as less-direct rivals.

President Trump lashed out at journalists during a surly and contentious news conference at the White House on Wednesday, renewing his attacks on the news media as “the enemy of the people” just moments after pledging an end to partisan politics in the wake of a grueling midterm election. “CNN should be ashamed of itself having you working for them,” Trump told CNN chief White House correspondent Jim Acosta

In an aggressive call on a night when many television networks played it safe, Fox News was the first major news organization to project that the Democrats would retake control of the House of Representatives, dealing a blow to the channel’s most famous viewer, President Trump.

Thanking his campaign supporters for their spirited challenge to Sen. Ted Cruz, he said on live television Tuesday: “All of you, showing the country how you do this. I’m so f—ing proud of you guys.”

For the first time, almost every major news organization will be providing live video coverage of the elections.

There’s one thing the highly competitive broadcast news anchors and producers responsible for covering the midterm elections can agree on: the stakes almost couldn’t be higher, both for politicians and the television networks that cover them. “These are the events that define a news division,” says Marc Burstein, ABC News senior executive producer. “It is the Super Bowl of our business.”