As Americans face a presidential election choice that seems to turn off many voters but yet is hugely important, media covering the campaign take their roles seriously and are taking great pains to make sure information is accurate, updated in a timely fashion and that coverage is about what voters are saying not just politicians.
Those were takeaways from representatives of ABC, CBS, CNN and the Associated Press tasked with political coverage at their outlets during a panel at The Business of TV News event in Washington on May 2.
Moderator Greta Brawner, executive producer for public affairs programming at C-SPAN, started by reading the headline from a new survey by the AP and the American Press Institute. "News organizations have trust issues," she said. About half of Americans in the survey said they were extremely or very concerned that news organizations will report inaccuracies or misinformation during the election, she said. Some 42% express worry that news outlets will use generative artificial intelligence to create stories. "One of the reasons for this is that people are less familiar with how journalism works," Brawner said.
The panelists all made clear that voters' views are central to their coverage, along with analysis of polls, campaign tactics and what the candidates are saying and doing, as David Chalian, VP and political director at CNN, explained. He said CNN boss Mark Thompson made clear soon after arriving that in addition to all of that "the critical component is putting the voters at the center of everything."
Ed O'Keefe, the CBS News senior White House and political correspondent, said that because the presidential candidates were decided so early and are so well known that "we're now much more curious to know who will make the ultimate decision, the voters" and much of the coverage is themed Listening to America.
ABC News deputy political director Averi Harper said "it has always been our longstanding motto, your voice, your vote. And that is about listening to voters." The network has reporters traveling the country and talking to voters all the time. "And those are voices that you see come up across our shows, across our platforms."
Harper also said, in regard to weeding out faked videos: "When we do stories about AI we have to label them very clearly, because we never want anyone who's viewing our stories, viewing our work, to get confused about what's real and what's fake."
Associated Press Washington bureau chief Anna Johnson, responding to a question about deciding who has won an election, said the AP is putting a lot of effort into being transparent about how races are called. "We've hired people right onto our decision team who are experts whose job is it to actually explain how we're doing that." Johnson spoke about efforts at "prebunking" misconceptions people might have about how elections work, including with a how-it-works series for AP members called "Our Very Complicated Democracy."
Along with stressing their interest in voters' views, the panelists spoke about how careful their organizations are not to pass along misinformation or manipulated video, and that when stories are developing and facts change (or mistakes are made) that updates are made on air to clarify and correct the information promptly and fully.
Chalian, Harper and O'Keefe also explained that in 2020 news organizations had to explain why it was important to wait until enough votes are counted to reliably call a race as won, Harper recalling the "red mirage" of some early counts indicating a Republican lead that were wiped out after Democratic votes (such as mailed-in ballots) were added in. This time around, media would be wise to be patient, again.
"Keep in mind that election day is in early November, but this process is not done until at least inauguration," O'Keefe said.
The Business of TV News was a daylong event produced by Future B2B's B+C, Multichannel News and Next TV.
