An Evening of Rash Predictions

When its cameras and microphones are on hand to catch the unfolding drama of a major event, TV news re porting is at its best. From the pageant ry of a President's funeral to the suspense of a space-shot splashdown, the story is brought to the home screen with startling intimacy. The capabilities of the big eye seem virtually unlimited --and judging from the advance fanfare, the networks went all out to exploit those capabilities on last week's elections. But the cameras and the news casters muffed the story.

All three networks installed elaborate computer systems programmed to digest early returns and forecast winners at the earliest possible moment. At CBS, the setup was VPA (Vote Profile Analysis). NBC offered EVA (Electronic Vote Analysis); ABC produced RSVP (Research Selected Vote Profile). Like wire-service leg men still dedicated to the old-fashioned proposition that beat ing the opposition by a matter of minutes is a major victory, each network was determined to be first to call the winners. Fragmentary returns from key precincts were fed into the computers; comparisons were made with past voting patterns; projections of the uncounted votes were worked out. It was all a matter of simple arithmetic. But the flashy computers did the job in split seconds. Winners were declared before any vote counts appeared on the screen--much-to the bewilderment of viewers, who soon began to wonder how so much could be made of so little. Then, after those early, exciting announcements, came an inevitable letdown. Where was the tension of a close race that was still going on if everyone already knew the name of the winner?

Doubtful Honors. But did they know? The predictions so confidently made were all too often wrong. Shortly after the polls closed in Maryland, CBS named Democrat George P. Mahoney the new Governor; hours later it became embarrassingly clear that the winner was Republican Spiro Agnew. ABC declared Thomas Lusk the winner in the New Mexico gubernatorial race; later the network had to retract when Lusk lost. NBC earned the doubtful honor of being first to announce that Democrat Lester Maddox had won the race for Governor of Georgia. After the other networks made the same mistake, a beaming Maddox was encouraged to announce his plans over TV. Attempting to play down his segregationist past, he said: "We're gonna have a lotta common sense and a lotta common people in our government." Hours later the computers were contradicted; neither Maddox nor his Republican opponent, Howard ("Bo") Callaway, had received a majority of the votes.

As the computers went awry, so did some of the newscasters assigned to analyze their output. NBC's Robert MacNeil, anxious to help fill in the empty minutes, dredged up the results of preelection polls to make a far-out analogy between California's New Leftists who voted for Reagan and the German Leftists of the 1930s who voted for Hitler on the theory that he would soon collapse. In a more jocular vein, MacNeil explained that Democrat George Mahoney had lost in his bid to become Maryland's Governor because such traditional Maryland Democratic voters as David Brinkley had turned against their party.

"Now wait a minute," Brinkley interrupted testily on-camera. "How do you know how I would normally vote? We have a secret ballot in this country." As a matter of fact, Brinkley admitted, he had not voted at all; he had been in New York all day. But there was no doubt as to where he stood on Mahoney. "When you've got a candidate for Governor standing up and singing Your Home Is Your Castle, Protect It, sung to the tune of The Bells of St. Mary's --off key," he said, "that's a little much."

While some NBC anchormen floundered, over at CBS the resident essayist, Eric Sevareid, reacted almost as automatically as a computer when he received the misinformation that Segregationists Maddox and Mahoney had won. Lumping them with Alabama's Governor-elect Lurleen Wallace, Sevareid made a pious preachment against what he assumed to be a strong white backlash.

Cocktails on the Air. In between the fluffs, some of the newscasters did demonstrate that they had done their homework. They were informed on the issues, and their energy seldom flagged as they ad-libbed their way through the tedious hours. ABC's Howard K. Smith displayed a gift for apt generalization; Brinkley produced some intriguing sidebars on candidates. But everyone--even CBS's Walter Cronkite and his crew--was reduced at last to the level of cocktail-party chatter. As if the computers had done the real job and all that was required of them was casual banter, they tossed the conversational ball back and forth. "What's your opinion, Harry?" "Isn't that right, Chet?"

The morning after the big, automated orgy, the networks wasted no time advertising their boasts about the number of firsts they scored in their steady stream of rash predictions. But outside the industry, nobody seemed to care. Even network affiliates weighed in with letters reporting their irritation over the fact that a combination of show business and ferocious competition for ratings had botched what should have been a big-time news operation. As for the audience, anxious to know the real results of the cliffhangers that the networks had so blithely called the night before, they turned as usual to the daily newspapers.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.