Another Rush to Judgment

By WILLIAM A. HENRY III

Amid doubts about exit-poll ethics, TV outraces the voters

For CBS News Anchor Dan Rather, the presidential election was officially over at 8 p.m. E.S.T. when little more than 1% of the votes had been tallied. At ABC, which had vowed in advance to practice "good citizenship" and restraint, Peter Jennings announced a Reagan victory 13 minutes after Rather. NBC, which transformed the rules of political reporting four years ago by proclaiming Reagan's victory over Jimmy Carter while much of the country was still voting, responded to critics by delaying Tom Brokaw's victory decree until 8:30 p.m. At that hour, voting remained in progress in 26 states. Cable News Network abstained from predictions but nonetheless reported as news the projections made by its three bigger rivals. Politicians had voiced fears that the four major television news organizations would predict the outcome of the contest while polling places remained open on the West Coast. As it turned out, the networks called the race for Reagan before the polls closed in New York.

Having achieved that feat of prognostication, primarily through exit polling of tens of thousands of people as they left the voting booths, the networks belatedly seemed to realize that they had diminished the drama of their story. If the election was over, why should viewers continue to watch? The answer, in the parlance of the sports mentality that prevails in much of TV news: to see whether Reagan could win a record 50-state sweep or Mondale's "prevent defense," as Rather called it at one point, could hold him off. As it grew probable that Minnesota would spare Mondale that ignominy, the emphasis shifted to the size and, secondarily, the meaning of Reagan's "mandate" in the House and Senate. Then came the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat: a genial acceptance speech by Reagan after a moving concession by Mondale. Through it all, the same anchors who had said the outcome was settled kept plaintively urging people in states where polls remained open to get out and vote.

The self-contradictory tone may have sounded to some viewers like hypocrisy, but it seemed to reflect instead a deep ethical confusion. Network executives contended off-camera that journalistic integrity required them to report promptly whatever they knew about election trends. "If we have the information, we should put it on the air," said Lane Venardos, executive producer of the CBS Evening News. Yet exit polls, perhaps as much as debates and campaign commercials, have thrust TV into the political process. NBC'S early call in 1980 was said to have discouraged voting and thus affected the outcome of close races on the West Coast. This year a House subcommittee grilled TV executives about the practice, and both the House and the Senate passed nonbinding resolutions of disapproval.

On election night, hundreds of angry viewers telephoned the network-affiliated stations in San Francisco and Los Angeles to denounce the early prediction. Washington Secretary of State Ralph Munro, sponsor of a 1983 state law that prohibits exit polling within 300 feet of a voting place, said the network action meant that voters "had their ballots opened for them before they were cast."

Despite the controversy about exit polls, the analyses they permit of voter behavior have enhanced and perhaps largely replaced old-fashioned punditry. ABC's Barry Serafin reported on the basis of exit polling that fewer voters than four years ago regard President Reagan's age as an issue. CBS's Diane Sawyer linked the "gender gap" between men and women to an opinion gap between working women and homemakers. NBC's John Chancellor used statistics about Mondale's strength among blacks and weakness among Southern whites to explore a major ideological theme of the night, the breakup of the New Deal coalition.

The exit polls also provided data for the pyrotechnic displays of flashing scoreboards and computer-generated graphics that hurtled like roller coasters across the screen. A dial-spinning viewer, however, might have been befuddled. On NBC's national map, a spreading sea of blue represented Reagan's triumph, and little islands of red symbolized Mondale's meager winnings; on ABC and CBS maps, the color symbolism was reversed. Viewers also were entitled to wonder about the decision making that led to the jazzy displays. As in previous, less technologically sophisticated elections, networks were often hours apart in calling the same races based on roughly the same data.

Election night is a crucial test for network news operations, and all of them passed handsomely. Anchors and commentators misspoke frequently, but most gaffes were on the modest level of ABC's misspelling Republican Senator Jesse Helms' first name as Jessie in proclaiming him a winner in North Carolina. NBC had the most admirable sangfroid: a potential strike by news writers, who threatened to walk off in mid-broadcast if necessary, did not reach a tentative settlement until 7 p.m., with Brokaw already on the air. The low point for many viewers came during Mondale's concession, when some affiliates cut to commercials.

Perhaps the last thread of continuity between the ragged but vibrant election broadcasts of the precomputer age and the foreordained, almost Orwellian, whizbangery of 1984 is that a good idea and a graceful turn of phrase are still the most satisfying parts of the night. Brokaw praised Reagan's ability to get "moist in the eyes" when talking about America. Bill Moyers of CBS likened the Republican sweep of the South to "a jackknife slicing through a ripe peach." But sadness seemingly inspires better poetry than joy. Perhaps the best example was a rumination by Elder Statesman David Brinkley of ABC about the forlorn dignity of Mondale, aloft in his campaign plane, "looking down at all those states that were not going to vote for him." --By William A. Henry III