Al Roker of NBC’s Today said today that he has been diagnosed with prostate cancer and will be undergoing surgery to have his prostate removed. “I’m going to be taking some time off to take care of this.”
Even Fox & Friends, a warm venue for the president, sounded doubts about his talk of a stolen election. CNN and MSNBC dismissed the claims.
With Donald Trump’s path to reelection narrowing, he and his campaign have taken aim at the director of Fox News’ Decision Desk, which called Arizona for Joe Biden on Election Night. The Trump campaign sent out a press release attacking Arnon Mishkin, who has since made multiple appearances on the air defending the call and declining to retract it.
After Election Night itself proved inconclusive, almost all the major broadcast and cable news networks continued their coverage into a second night. Whereas Fox News emerged victorious on Election Night, CNN topped the overall viewership rankings for night 2, drawing 7.1 million viewers in the primetime hours of 8-11 p.m. Fox News wasn’t all that far behind, garnering 6.3 million viewers in the same timeframe. MSNBC came third with 4.8 million viewers. On the broadcast front, NBC drew 3.7 million viewers to ABC’s 2.5 million and CBS’s 2 million.
Exclusives
ABC, CBS and NBC all cut away from President Donald Trump on Thursday as he spoke from the White House to make an unfounded accusation that the presidential election was being stolen from him. Trump had tried to commandeer the nation’s airwaves at a time when the evening newscasts are shown on the East Coast, after a day when the slow drip of vote counting revealed his leads in Pennsylvania and Georgia dwindling.
Twitter, Facebook and YouTube remained on alert as the lack of a clear election result kept the online misinformation flowing.
Miami’s WSVN Dominated Election Night Coverage
Cable News Isn’t Built To Cover This Election, Or Anything That Requires Patience
Caroline Framke: “Having the wherewithal to take a beat and take stock of an unfolding situation with appropriate caution should be common practice. But patience is not a virtue for cable news, which runs on a steady diet of urgency and panic. Sometimes, stories really do warrant that combination. But it’s become harder and harder to discern which, since cable tends to present every single one at the same hysterical fever pitch.”
Methodical vote counting Wednesday left Democrat Joe Biden on the cusp of the presidency. The Associated Press said he has won enough states for 264 electoral votes and a win in one of four uncalled states — Georgia, North Carolina, Pennsylvania or Nevada — would make him the president-elect. Cable and broadcast news divisions followed the story closely, even as they learned that election night coverage was a relative dud with viewers.
Fox News Channel’s primetime coverage of election night 2020 topped all television networks and set a record for the most-watched election night coverage in cable news history, according to early data from Nielsen. FNC’s primetime coverage averaged 13.7 million in total viewers and nearly 5 million in the 25-54 demographic, making it the highest-rated election night coverage in all of television in total viewers and the adults 25-54 demo, beating ABC, NBC, CBS and all cable news networks.
MSNBC’s election night coverage featured a bevy of the cable newser’s all-stars, including Rachel Maddow, Brian Williams, Joy Reid and Nicolle Wallace. But, as was clear to anyone watching Tuesday night, the breakout of the evening was political correspondent Steve Kornacki, master of the interactive touchscreen map that has become a staple of TV news political coverage.
In this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes … and that John King will wow you on Election Night (and in some years, apparently beyond!) with his working of CNN’s “Magic Wall” tote board.
Election night coverage on the three major cable networks — CNN, Fox News and MSNBC — felt like a waiting game during the prime time hours. But then, after 11 p.m., Fox News threw in a plot twist as its decision desk, working with its own data, made bold projections in a key battleground state.
One week before election day, President Trump tweeted: “Big problems and discrepancies with Mail In Ballots all over the USA”—a claim he used to call for the dismissal of some of those ballots and for a definitive result on November 3 regardless of outstanding votes. CJR spoke with reporters in Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Georgia, Minnesota, and New Jersey about their efforts to reassure local readers about the integrity of the electoral process, even as national figures spun stories about their coverage areas.
ABC and NBC are leading preliminary Election Night broadcast ratings. The networks ranked as No.1 in the non-time zone adjusted fast nationals among total viewers (ABC) and adults 18-49 (NBC). Because the election night coverage was live coast-to-coast and spilled into latenight and early Wednesday morning, the primetime fast nationals represent just a snapshot of the election night ratings performance. Full picture is expected later today, including numbers for cable news networks, which have emerged as a dominant ratings force in political coverage.
Talking to beat reporters who spent months covering the campaigns of President Donald Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden is like hearing about journeys to two completely different planets.
Election Day coverage by broadcast and cable networks introduced admirable caution and detailed explanation, but also continued some bad habits.
We Still Don’t Know Much About This Election — Except That The Media And Pollsters Blew It Again
y early morning Wednesday, there was a lot that millions of anxious Americans didn’t know. Mainly, they didn’t know who the president-elect is. That, in itself, wasn’t unexpected, nor is it terrible. But after consuming hours of news on Tuesday night, and observing the election results thus far, there are a few things that we can be certain of.
The data cruncher Arnon Mishkin made projections for key states on a night when other news networks played it safe.
As the polls closed in key states on Tuesday, TV networks held off on projecting winners throughout much of their election night coverage, promising a prudent, go-slow approach to avoid the up-is-down shocks of 2016. By midnight on the East Coast, anchors were telling viewers that it was now their turn to cool their heels: A clear outcome, they warned, could take days.
With reporters and supporters gathered at the White House at 2:20 a.m. ET, the president said it was “a major fraud on our nation” that he hadn’t been declared the winner. “As far as I’m concerned, we already have won this,” he said. The words were barely out of his mouth before television anchors rushed to refute him.
