If there’s one moment that stands out from all the news coverage on election night in 2020, it might be this: Fox News calling the swing state of Arizona for the eventual president, Joe Biden. The Fox News call was made days before any other network followed suit. Then-President Donald Trump and his camp were furious and wanted Fox News to retract the call.

There is debate about whether Fox News jumped the gun in 2020, but the bottom line is the network turned out to be right. Biden won Arizona and, ultimately, became president.

Now, Fox News, which had more viewers (13.7 million) in 2020 than any cable news network has ever had on election night, is gearing up for another historic night next Tuesday.

Fox News anchor Bill Hemmer told me this week that the first meeting to prepare for Tuesday’s election night coverage was held in January … of 2023.

Since then, Hemmer said the preparation has been exhaustive: rehearsals, research, more rehearsals, more research, studying polls, examining websites, delving deep into early voting, looking for clues over here and signs over there. For months upon months, gearing up for this one night. (Or week, if the election drags on.)

“Whether you’re getting ready for a big game as a football player, or whether you’re prepping for the exam of your life,” Hemmer said, “when you put in the work with your team, and then that clock strikes 7 o’clock and you have the opportunity to put those states on the board and the colors start to fill in, and you see data that matters for the first time, you know that at that moment, it’s game on.”

This year, Hemmer will have plenty of help in the form of new technology. That will include augmented reality technology for Hemmer’s “Bill-Board” — the map where he can show viewers how voting is going now, how it has gone in the past, and what might happen to eventually determine the next president.

Hemmer started covering elections back in the early 2000s with CNN. He said the technology back then felt like “a pen and a pad of paper” compared to what’s available today. Hemmer will be able to drill into election data in real time, And, Fox News says, he will be able to “interact and Telestrate in 3D space as the infrared sensors can track anchors and objects.”

Fox News also says it has “created several sophisticated multimedia presentation concepts to enhance the viewer’s election experience, including a ‘Path to 270’ map, showcasing the presidential nominees’ potential line to the critical electoral votes needed through dynamic 3D interaction. News anchors can present various scenarios by moving virtual objects representing the electoral votes in the path to win the presidency.”

There’s a bunch more, too, that you just have to see to understand. It might sound like a bunch of tech jibber-jabber, but that’s fine with Hemmer, who said, “I’m a bit of a technology nerd.”

In the end, however, it’s not just flashy bells and whistles, so to speak.

Hemmer said, “If we are able to capture a story to show it with this new technology, we’re going to be able to take a story of massive importance and massive size and display it in a way that we never have before. … In a close election, you have so many numbers from so many parts of the country, many of which are coming in all at the same time, you ask yourself, ‘How can we best tell this story?’”

First and foremost, they have to tell it accurately. Hemmer fully realizes the pressure of election night.

He knows millions of viewers, which will include those inside the camps of both candidates, will be watching. He also knows that most viewers are heavily invested in the outcome of this election, and will hang on every single word he might say.

His word choices are critical, especially when it comes to filling hours, and perhaps days, on air with very little new information.

He told me, “It’s of paramount importance. You can protect yourself, but you can only protect yourself if you’re using the appropriate language. And if you’re not sure, you better hedge and make it obvious to viewers at home that you don’t know.”

Hemmer doesn’t know who is going to win. He won’t even say when we might know who the next president is.

He said, “There will be surprises. And twists and turns that no one can predict. That’s what makes it exciting, but it also could make it long. I’ve always thought this about big breaking news stories: You’re on the air forever. It’s hours, it’s days. There are a few stories where we’re on the air for weeks at a time. I’ve always thought that as long as there is new information and data, it helps drive you as a reporter, as a correspondent, as an anchor, as an analyst. It’s when the data dries up that your mind doesn’t move as fast.”

That’s why Hemmer has been poring over polls, saying he “follows them closely.” He looks for trends, for patterns. He uses his experiences of past elections to help him try to detect what might happen in this election.

But, in the end, it will come down to the results. No more polls. No more predictions. Just results. Just facts.

And, for Hemmer and Fox News on election night, a story to tell.

“It’s a lot of pressure,” Hemmer said, “but, oh yeah, it’s fun.”

Speaking of coverage

NBC News announced it will offer ​​24 hours of consecutive live coverage to viewers on its local NBC stations for the first time ever beginning at 5 p.m. Eastern on Election Day.

More than 100 journalists will contribute coverage from around the country. The news division’s top anchors and personalities — including Lester Holt, Savannah Guthrie, Kristen Welker, Hallie Jackson, Tom Llamas, Kate Snow, Craig Melvin, Chuck Todd, Kelly O’Donnell, Hoda Kotb and Ryan Nobles — will help anchor and lead the coverage.

NBC News NOW will present live programming for 40+ hours, beginning at 7 a.m. Eastern on Tuesday and continuing late into Wednesday evening.

No one knows

As I mentioned above, Hemmer says not only does he not know who will be the next president, but he won’t say when anyone will know. NBC News’ Steve Kornacki recently told me pretty much the same thing. Meanwhile, FiveThirtyEight founder Nate Silver recently wrote in The New York Times that his gut says Donald Trump is going to win, but he added, “I don’t think you should put any value whatsoever on anyone’s gut — including mine.”

The only certainty in the polls is uncertainty. They all seem to be razor close and all within the margin of error.

As CNN’s Brian Stelter wrote on Wednesday, “In this final week of the campaign, the most important thing for the news media to communicate is uncertainty.”

ABC News Washington bureau chief and vice president Rick Klein told CNN, “We have a responsibility to not just say what the polls show but explain what they don’t and can’t. Any suggestion that the outcome of this election is certain is simply not borne out by the numbers.”

In the end, it’s very possible that the election results actually won’t be close. One of the candidates could end up sweeping the swing states and cruise to a blowout electoral college victory. Then again, that also could mean each of the swing states is only won by a few thousand votes. So it could be close, but not really close. Or maybe the swing states are split.

Again, the only certainty now is uncertainty and any suggestion that there is a favorite simply is misleading. Not only that, but saying there is a favorite could be dangerous. If supporters of one candidate, because of media reports, are convinced that their choice will win, what will be their reaction if their candidate loses? Many supporters of Trump, buoyed by conservative media, are convinced he will win, and have said they will question the fairness of the election if Trump loses.

ABC News chief Washington correspondent Jonathan Karl told Stelter, “The most important thing to do is emphasize the uncertainty of the race. We have lots of data. We have lots of smart people who analyze the data. We present what we have with humility. The truth is nobody knows who is going to win this. And that is a point we have been making over and over again.”

Stop the presses

The Star-Ledger, the largest newspaper in New Jersey, will no longer offer a print product starting early next year. It will continue to publish online, but it will cease publishing a print newspaper and will close its production facility in February 2025.

The Newark Morning Ledger Co., owners of The Star-Ledger, said the move is being made due to rising costs, decreasing circulation and reduced demand for print copies of The Star-Ledger.

NJ.com also reported, “In addition, Advance Local, which owns NJ Advance Media and NJ.com, announced that it is ending print publication of dailies The Times of Trenton and the South Jersey Times, as well as the weekly Hunterdon County Democrat. Online newspapers for The Star-Ledger, The Times of Trenton and South Jersey Times will continue to be produced seven days a week for subscribers. The online newspaper provides subscribers with 10+ exclusive daily pages of additional local and national content not found in the current printed newspaper.”

David Blomquist, The Journal’s editor and publisher, told The Associated Press’ Bruce Shipkowski, “We fought as hard as we can for as long as we could. An online-only publication simply would not have enough scale to support the strong, politically independent journalism that has distinguished The Journal.”

NJ.com also wrote, “Star-Ledger leaders acknowledged that the changes will have a significant impact on existing employees of the company, as well as devoted readers of the company’s print products. But, they said, the shift in readership habits from print to digital is in keeping with national trends in consumer and behavior. Thus far in 2024, Star-Ledger print circulation is down 21% in the last year.”

Ken Paulson, former USA Today editor, rips Gannett’s retreat from presidential endorsements

For this item, I turn it over to Poynter media business analyst Rick Edmonds.

Ken Paulson, a longtime Gannett executive, published an opinion piece Tuesday highly critical of Gannett’s directive that USA Today and its regional papers not endorse in this year’s presidential election. That’s a distinct change for the worse from the ’80s, ’90s and early years of this century, Paulson argued, when Gannett let its editors make those decisions on their own.

“You won’t see The Detroit Free Press’ take on which candidate is better for Michigan’s economy,” Paulson wrote. “Or the El Paso Times’ sense of the better candidate to address immigration. Or the Sarasota Herald-Tribune’s view on who can best address environmental concerns.”

The piece appeared on the website of The Free Speech Center at Middle Tennessee State University, where Paulson is director. Earlier in his career, he was chief of staff to legendary Gannett CEO Al Neuharth, one of the early editors of USA Today and an executive at Gannett nonprofits the Newseum and the Freedom Forum First Amendment Center.

Gannett chief communications officer, Lark-Marie Antón, characterized Paulson’s essay as “biased, incorrect and misleading.” The nonendorsement decision, she said, was made in 2023 by the editorial division’s top ranks with no interference from the rest of the corporate office.

Meanwhile, CNN did a full news story on Gannett’s reversing course at USA Today, where the national flagship broke with its tradition and endorsed Joe Biden in 2020, but has shifted back to no endorsement this year.

A quarter of a million

(AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais, File)

There have been several reports of The Washington Post losing at least 250,000 digital subscriptions through cancellations following owner Jeff Bezos’ decision to block the Post’s editorial board from endorsing Kamala Harris for president. (NPR’s David Folkenflik was the first with that number.)

The Washington Post’s Elahe Izadi wrote, “The Post began experiencing a huge spike in the number of subscribers looking to cancel online starting Friday in the wake of the announcement by CEO and publisher William Lewis, according to documents and two people familiar with the figures who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to comment publicly. By Tuesday, the number reached 250,000, the documents indicate.”

Izadi notes that two things are not known: how many new subscribers have signed up during the same period, and how many might have canceled and then resubscribed. Izadi also reports that some of the cancellations won’t take effect immediately, as they were yearly subscriptions and readers will continue to have access until their accounts expire.

Carpenter Media Group has a ‘pattern’ of acquisitions and layoffs, union alleges

For this item, I turn it over to my Poynter colleague, Angela Fu.

The Honolulu Star-Advertiser will lay off six editorial employees — 20% of the newsroom — the paper’s union announced Wednesday. The cuts include the paper’s remaining staff photographers, who covered the Maui wildfires.

The layoffs are the latest in a string executed by owner Carpenter Media Group at its papers this year. The company, based in the Deep South, went from being relatively unknown to becoming the sixth-largest newspaper owner in the country over the past year. During that time, the chain laid off dozens of workers in what the Honolulu Star-Advertiser Guild described as a “pattern” of acquisitions and subsequent layoffs.

“Perhaps (company chairman) Mr. (Todd) Carpenter should spend more time ‘protecting and leading’ news outlets he has already bought, rather than going on buying sprees for new acquisitions his company evidently can’t afford,” the union wrote in a statement.

Carpenter Media Group’s website lists more than 130 titles across 20 states — many of which it acquired this year. In March, it bought Black Press Media, which owned Oahu Publications (the Star-Advertiser’s parent company) and Sound Publishing. In June, the company laid off 62 people at Sound Publishing’s Washington papers. That same month, Carpenter Media Group acquired Oregon-based Pamplin Media Group. Six weeks later, it instituted layoffs.

Carpenter Media Group did not respond to a request for comment.

Oahu Publications CEO Dennis Francis told Hawaii News Now in a statement that the company decided to implement layoffs “to strengthen the company’s financial future.”

“While job loss decisions are always difficult to make, the evolution of newspaper journalism has hit everyone in the industry hard, and OPI is no exception,” Francis said. “For local journalism to succeed and for OPI to remain the Hawaiʻi-produced paper our community relies on, we must maintain a resilient financial business.”

More than 80 outlets have implemented layoffs this year as companies continue to struggle with shortfalls in advertising revenue and declining readership.

Media tidbits

• Nieman Lab’s Sarah Scire with “The Washington Post’s non-endorsement led to record-breaking weeks at other news orgs.”
• The Washington Post is digging deep into its owner, Jeff Bezos. Reporters Isaac Stanley-Becker, Aaron C. Davis, Josh Dawsey and Christian Davenport with “For Jeff Bezos and his businesses, Washington has become more important.”
• The New York Times’ David Streitfeld with “Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk and the Billions of Ways to Influence an Election.”
• CNN reporter Donie O’Sullivan spent 24 hours consuming MAGA media. See the important trend he found.
• Vanity Fair’s Chris Smith with “(Expletive) Apathy: Jon Stewart Is Focused on Donald Trump’s Demagoguery.”
• The Washington Post’s Jeremy Barr with “Will TV viewers trust network election calls? Chris Stirewalt hopes so.”
• The Grammy Awards have been on CBS since 1973, but that will soon change. The annual music awards ceremony will move over to Disney (ABC, Hulu and Disney+) starting in 2027. The Grammy deal with Disney is for 10 years.
• The Washington Post’s Ben Strauss with “Inside the battle over reporters’ access to NFL locker rooms.”

Hot type

• For The New York Times, Danielle Friedman with “The Menopause Queen’s Gambit.”

More resources for journalists

• It’s time to apply for the Leadership Academy for Women in Media.
• Consider this dynamic, in-person, five-day workshop for new newsroom managers.
• Reinvigoration for the unsung heroes of the TV newsroom.

Have feedback or a tip? Email Poynter senior media writer Tom Jones at tjones@poynter.org.

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