The blue wave? The red wave? Election-night television is like a whirlpool

Early on election night, CNN commentator Van Jones predicted, “You can get to the beach tonight.”

This is a rare accurate prediction in the evening, both clinically and oceanically. Trump began the night with a red-hot confrontation off the coast of Florida, hitting a crossroads from the west that led to Joseph R. Biden sparked the campaign, creating a cycle of confusion and uncertainty. The president jumped on the deck at the end of the night to shake the boat, and eventually, everyone may have used a trampoline.

The thing is, the TV network anchor desks already had the forecast. How the epidemic will disrupt the patterns of the vote, how it will create the illusion of how a “red mirage” will advance the states with votes on the same day, undermining the presidential democratic process, and that election may be extended overnight to a length commonly found in the Arctic Circle. Of course, the polls did not call for this right decision – but the 2016 polls told us it could be wrong.

But while it’s one thing to know that election night can be confusing, it’s another thing to enjoy it. In an election context – not just numbers, but what numbers represent – is more important than ever, as networks often struggle to let their viewers know what they know, what they do not know and what they do not know. .

For example, thanks to Govt, there was an unprecedented level of early voting, with the question of how you represent a “lead” in different states calculated at different times.

CNN sprayed its reminders on its coverage. But it also showed maps with states in Democratic blue and Republican red, so at one point it showed South Carolina in blue and Virginia in red, even though each state had already been invited to the other party.

Sometimes, responsibility loses enthusiasm. At one point, Wolf Blitzer was quoted as saying “slightly surprised.” Biden led Kentucky on an election night written by drunken screenwriters he was not going to win. John King, pushing his magical wall to new limits of its potential and calling it “fun” to smash the number of nights, spoke exactly one volume.

Channel hoppers can get the impression that different networks are reporting from different countries and not for conventional ideological reasons. Fox News, which worked this year from different exit-poll data than most competing networks, called previous states sometimes for hours.

Its most important decision, at prime time, was its call Arizona for Mr. Biden, Which changed the curve of the night. (Mr. Trump won the state in 2016.) Anchor Chris Wallace likened this to a service break in tennis, which led to some broken gaskets in the Trump campaign, which was the “bright” president’s (once?) Favorite network at the invitation of Fox’s Katie Powell.

Fox was previously caught between the data and its conservative base. In 2012, the then-editor, McKinley, was replaced by former George W. Bush aide Carl Rowe flew into the air about Fox calling Ohio for Barack Obama.

The network was stuck at its end table again on Tuesday, but the way it played shows the need to change the network’s base in eight years and how much politicians have changed in lighting up its phones. Again and again, it roasted analysts from its end table (an independent unit set up to call races without pressure). When Chris Styrwald, Fox’s political editor, noted that Ohio was not called with caution, anchor Fred Bayer retorted, “You were not careful, cautious, and interested in Arizona.” (Bayer later said he was joking. Ha ha?)

When midnight came, it was time, and the researchers of each network were working on the touch screens, and any of us could calculate how long it would be until we got a good night’s sleep again.

But once it became clear that no decisive call was immediate, there was a play that was greatly predicted: what would Donald Trump say, and how would networks cover it?

Mr. Trump, long Fan of flexible accounting, Had telegraphed that he would evaluate any way to vote and count, which did not add to his base. Although the words of a president in a controversial election are news, they are also weapons; Mr. News organizations were well aware that Trump’s Orwellian phrase – in “money laundering” his voters – could be used by their organizations to spread the idea that anyone else could legally count the votes they cast.

The president spoke at the White House, whose walls were streamed with flags and flat screens, an angry continuation of his 2016 surprise-hit speech at a Manhattan hotel.

But where the tone of the 2016 coverage was re-assembled, this time the sales outlets received four years of training on what to expect, and he reprimanded the President in the headlines even after he spoke. (“CBS News does not present a winner in the presidential race”; on CNN, “Trump says he will go to the Supreme Court; it is not clear why.”)

An election closed overnight with a confusing but sober statement, Panditri and Spin were ready to enter the dawn. (In the morning, the Fox Election Commission handed over the matter to “Fox and Friends,” with Brian Kilmeet warning that Mr. Biden could “capture” the election by counting the remaining votes.)

So the ending – or not – the latest episode of the Presidential Serial continues to be shocking, but not surprising.