TV News promises transparency, but will viewers listen?

If there’s an overarching theme in the best-laid plans of television news organizations to cover Election Night in 2024, it’s “transparency.”

Wary of what happened four years ago, it seems every channel is figuring out how best to not only show the numbers, but how the numbers came to be, what they really mean, and why they means something.

In a world where a call from a TV channel can throw a campaign into chaos, everyone involved seems to understand how high the stakes are.

The early Arizona call made by Fox News and the Associated Press in 2020 is still looming large in newsrooms. Of course, both parties ultimately stood by their call, and they were eventually confirmed, but according to executives and on-air talent at several television networks who spoke to The Hollywood Reporterthe lessons of that call can still be felt.

Chris Stirewalt, for example, was on the decision-making team that called Arizona for Fox News (the team is led by veteran consultant Arnon Mishkin). Stirewalt was let go from Fox in 2021, but now works at Nexstar-owned cable news channel NewsNation, where he will appear on air as an analyst.

“There was a kind The Wizard of Oz component, that in another room, somewhere else, there were magical beings doing this work of predicting the outcome of a presidential election,” says Stirewalt. “I don’t think that works in our fragmented and atomized media world, without giants further above the ground. I think you have to show people what you’re doing, and I think you have to be transparent about what’s going on.”

When viewers tune in tonight, the metaphorical curtain will likely take place in two different ways: By talking to the data scientists involved, and by using technology (and good old-fashioned on-air storytelling skills) to make the data a little easier to understand.

When it comes to technology, every network has a gimmick or two (Fox News has augmented reality graphics, for example, while NBC News has a CGI version of Rockefeller Center behind the anchors that glows red and blue), but there also new desktop efforts in the form of touchscreen data analysis tools. The “Magic Wall” that CNN pioneered in 2008 is now de rigueur, with every network having one, and a data-focused reporter or anchor standing by to crunch the numbers.

John King will return to call at CNN, as will Bill Hemmer at Fox and Tom Llamas at NBC. On MSNBC, Steve Kornacki will be holding court, and he’ll also have a “Kornacki Cam” in the form of a GoPro suction on his desk, letting Peacock users watch him all night long.

“There’s never a free live shot with Steve Kornacki,” says Meet the press moderator Kristen Welker. “There’s never an unmotivated word that comes out of his mouth. When he gives our viewers information, it’s because he thinks it’s critically important and that it highlights these key themes that we’re talking about in this election, about it’s the gender gap, whether it’s the right track/wrong track number, whether it’s how voters feel about these critical issues that, frankly, are going to determine who wins this election” the economy, immigration, reproductive rights, climate change , to name just a few.

“So we like to get into the weeds with Steve Kornacki and he makes it informative and also, I think, accessible, and that’s such a big priority for us that we never want to leave people out of the conversation that we is garden,” she adds.

At Fox, Hemmer’s “Bill-board” will achieve the same, as will his augmented reality graphics.

“One of my favorite new toys that Bill Hemmer has is the one that, for example, shows you North Carolina and how far blue it was in, say, the last four elections, and the two times it crosses over into the red, just barely over the line for Trump. Same in Arizona,” says Fox News anchor Martha MacCallum “When you look at how small some of these changes are, Wisconsin has been decided by a handful, a couple of thousand votes in the last couple of elections. . So I think it really shows people what a heavy lift it is in some of these states to get from one side to the other to win them.”

“In this day and age, there are so many things to look at,” adds her Fox News co-anchor Bret Baier. “We want to make sure they understand what the data is that’s coming in and do it in different ways, which to Bill’s point with augmented reality might be a little bit more interesting to look at.”

While networks are laser-focused on their TV productions, there is also an emphasis on data-centric content outside the TV glass. CNN, for example, has a version of its Magic Wall inside the CNN app, so users can play with it themselves.

And at NBC News, there’s a flurry of explanatory and related content on various social and video channels.

“Steve Kornacki does a lot of explaining across TikTok, we have voting cards that will go up instantly across social,” said Rebecca Blumenstein, NBC News managing editor. “We know this is a time when people aren’t sure what to trust for information, but we’re making an effort to – no matter what platform people want to consume news – be there as the trusted choice .”

Perhaps most significantly, the networks seem increasingly inclined to highlight the people who make the actual calls, approaching them directly for questions or clarifications.

At Fox News, Baier says they’re ready to pull in Mishkin or other decision-makers to explain why they’re calling … or why not.

“Especially if it’s close and it’s a very late night and we’re waiting on some states, we’re thinking about lifting the curtain and taking them to the people who are looking at the data and wearing it and saying, ‘ why are we unable to make this call specifically?’ and then have that person say to Bill, ‘go to such-and-such county,’ and then we can see it visually, while the data decision person says, ‘here’s where we are, we’re stuck with this,'” Baier says . “I think that’s another thing we’ve learned over time is the more we show, the more transparent we are, the better I think it is for the viewer.”

At NewsNation, meanwhile, the channel forgoes its forecasting altogether and outsources it to Decision Desk HQ, where the channel has cameras and reporters in the room with them in Georgetown. Stirewalt argues that outsourcing the call makes the news organization more independent because it prevents lobbying or pressure from campaigns, as Fox News saw in 2020 when the Trump camp made a concerted effort to withdraw the Arizona call.

“I think this is better. I think it’s better because if you want to make sure that commercial, mercenary or partisan sentiments don’t affect how races are called, it helps if you just keep it clean, keeping it separate,” he says. “They’re over there. They do their thing. We can talk to them. We can see them. We can ask them questions, we can do all that, but they’re going to do what they want to do, and we’re going to report on it, and we’re going to try to provide context and explanation.”

But all the data and transparency in the world won’t mean much if viewers don’t buy it.

That’s the $64,000 question facing news organizations this year. Consumers are protected in a fragmented media environment, a veritable choose-your-own-adventure world where comforting data is at their fingertips at all times.

Half of the country will find itself on the losing end of Tuesday’s election. Will the transparency reassure them? Or will it drive them further toward data providers that offer assurances and a worldview that aligns with their own?