It ain’t over till it’s over.

Actually, it’s over when the networks say it’s over. That, anyway, was what happened Monday night with the Iowa caucuses when most news outlets called Donald Trump the big winner just as voting was getting underway.

Trump’s romp wasn’t surprising. It was the expected result. Still, Trump was declared the big winner of the night before the night had barely started.

That led to one of the common complaints that comes out of election-type coverage: news organizations calling the results before the voting is actually over.

But Iowa is a bit different, as I’ll explain in a moment.

That, however, didn’t stop the complaining when pretty much everyone, including NBC News, called the night for Trump only 30 minutes into the caucuses. Among the complainers was James Uthmeier, campaign manager for Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who finished second to Trump.

In an interview with NBC News reporter Dasha Burns, Uthmeier complained over and over about it, telling Burns, “We’ve got a long way to go before votes finish coming in tonight. But I just need people to understand this is a grave concern. This cannot happen in this country. This challenges the very foundation of our democracy to have winners announced before voting! That’s something you see in the Middle East, not the United States of America.”

After the interview, NBC News’ Chuck Todd defended NBC’s call, telling NBC News NOW anchor Tom Llamas, “We were mindful … if we think we’re able to project this, I mean, we’d seen the polling as well. What’s the earliest we’re comfortable? So we’re not getting in the way of voting.”

Todd went on to say, “When it is a double-digit victory like this, 20 to 30 points in any of this, whether we’re doing primaries, caucuses or general elections, you’re going to get an early call and projection because of the data we have. We have physical people at these precincts. We’re not just basing it off of the entrance poll itself.”

The complaints usually come from those who don’t win, leading Todd to say, “You rarely get this critique from the candidates that do win. Look, I get it. It’s like a fan complaining about the referees in a close game that they lose, right? You look for different things. But this wasn’t close. If this were a close race, we wouldn’t have called it.”

As I mentioned, Iowa is a different animal.

The New York Times’ Michael M. Grynbaum wrote, “While news outlets typically refrain from announcing a projection until after polls have closed, Iowa’s caucuses are not typical. Voters must be present by 7 p.m. (Central), when the caucus doors close, and The A.P. considers this moment the equivalent of a poll closing.”

Speaking on air, Fox News anchor Bret Baier said, “When the doors closed for the caucuses, that is the official time to be able to characterize the race. There’s a lot of controversy around it because people were inside and obviously had their phones, but that is how the rules go for Iowa.”

And Fox News’ Brit Hume added, “We are talking here about people who come out on a cold night together at a caucus site, the doors are closed, and nobody can get in, so the opportunity to vote remains. It’s hard to believe very many people would say, ‘Oh, my goodness, the race has been called, I’m going home.’ I don’t think so.”

Meanwhile, The Associated Press explained why it called the race for Trump.

Robert Yoon, elections and democracy reporter at the AP, wrote, “The Associated Press declared the former president the winner based on an analysis of initial returns as well as results of AP VoteCast, a survey of voters who planned to caucus on Monday night. Both showed Trump with an insurmountable lead.”

Yoon added, “In traditional primaries, AP does not declare a winner in any race before the last polls are scheduled to close in the contest. It’s sometimes possible to declare a winner in those races immediately after polls close before any vote results are released. AP does so only when its VoteCast survey of voters and other evidence, including the history of a state’s elections, details about ballots cast before Election Day and pre-election polling, provide overwhelming evidence of who has won. The Iowa caucuses are different. There are no ‘polls’ and no fixed time when all the voting ends. Instead, there is an 8 p.m. ET deadline for caucus voters to arrive at their location, at which point deliberations among caucusgoers begin behind closed doors. Some caucus sites might complete their business in a few minutes, while others can take some time to determine the outcome.”

So, Yoon explained, “AP followed its past practice and did not make a ‘poll close’ declaration of the winner on Monday night. Instead, AP reviewed returns from caucus sites across Iowa and declared Trump the winner only after those results, along with VoteCast and other evidence, made it unquestionably clear he had won.”

What does it actually mean?

The Iowa caucuses were, as usual, a big deal. A really big deal.

Or were they?

Nasty winter weather might have helped lead to the lowest-turnout caucus in a quarter-century. Only 110,000 and change took part.

Yet the news media, always ready to call a horse race, built up this night as if the 100,000 or so people in one Midwestern state somehow have a greater meaning than, well, 100,000 people in one Midwestern state.

As CBS News’ Allison Novelo notes, “Historically, presidential candidates have looked to the Iowa caucus to help launch themselves to nominee status. But the Iowa caucus hasn’t always gone on to be the best predictor of who will be the party’s nominee, even less so at predicting who will win the presidency. The state is largely white and conservative and not entirely representative of the U.S. population.”

The low numbers are not proportionate to the noise those numbers make.

But think of it like Opening Day in baseball. It’s not the World Series, but it’s the start of the season after months of training, i.e. campaigning. It’s a chance for news outlets to call what feels like a real game.

And Novelo cited Kyle Kondik, an elections analyst and managing editor of Sabato’s Crystal Ball at the University of Virginia Center for Politics, who believes that Iowa does provide what is likely a somewhat accurate snapshot of the current Republican Party.

Holding off

While most of the networks called the caucuses around 8:30 p.m. or so Eastern time, cable news station NewsNation waited longer — around 8:46 p.m., or nearly 20 minutes after the others.

NewsNation anchor Chris Cuomo said, “Now, if you’re flipping around, you will see that other organizations are calling the caucuses already. That makes sense. However, it is not about who wins. That would have been a shocker if it were going any other way. It’s about what is the margin? Does the former president break Bush’s record? If so, how did he do it? And does Haley — (New Hampshire Gov. Chris) Sununu is trying to lower expectations. No. Haley has huge expectations tonight. She’s got to show that she can threaten Trump. All the polls show she, not DeSantis, has a break with Trump favorability. Trump’s numbers are almost 50-50 with DeSantis voters. He’s like 70-25 with Haley voters, so this is a night to measure any real resistance to the former president. It matters so we’re going to stay on it because the margins will matter. And there’s a lot of caucusing yet to be done. At least the counting part and that’s the part that matters.”

Tuning in

If you add up all the main cable news networks, about 4.6 million viewers tuned into Sunday night’s coverage of the Iowa caucuses. Not a great number. But still better than the abysmal TV numbers for the Emmy Awards on Fox. Only 4.3 million viewers tuned in, making it the lowest viewership on record.

Neither was helped by the fact there was an NFL playoff game on at the same time, as the Tampa Bay Buccaneers played the Philadelphia Eagles. Those final TV numbers will come out today, but undoubtedly the NFL game easily won the night in terms of viewers.

Not a debate

Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley attends a caucus night watch party in West Des Moines, Iowa, on Monday. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

ABC News was supposed to have a Republican presidential candidate debate on Thursday night in New Hampshire, but it has been canceled. The reason? Candidate Nikki Haley is refusing to attend because Donald Trump isn’t participating.

An ABC spokesperson said, “Our intent was to host a debate coming out of the Iowa caucuses, but we always knew that would be contingent on the candidates and the outcome of the race. As a result, while our robust election coverage will continue, ABC News and WMUR-TV will not be moving forward with Thursday’s Republican presidential primary debate in New Hampshire.”

Haley put out a statement Tuesday saying, “We’ve had five great debates in this campaign. Unfortunately, Donald Trump has ducked all of them. He has nowhere left to hide. The next debate I do will either be with Donald Trump or with Joe Biden. I look forward to it.”

Meanwhile, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis tweeted that Haley is “afraid to debate,” adding, “I won’t snub New Hampshire voters like both Nikki Haley and Donald Trump, and plan to honor my commitments. I look forward to debating two empty podiums in the Granite State this week.”

CNN is scheduled to have a debate Sunday night in New Hampshire, but that now could be in jeopardy, as well.

Big change at Barstool

Erika Ayers Badan (formerly Erika Nardini) is stepping down as CEO of one of the more successful sports websites/brands in recent years — Barstool Sports.

The news broke over the weekend, and then Ayers Badan posted a video on X Monday, confirming that she was stepping down after more than seven years with the company.

In her video, Ayers Badan said she was “super sad” to be leaving Barstool, “but it has been a wild ride. I’m so grateful.”

It has been a wild ride for Barstool and Ayers Badan. She joined Barstool in 2016, shortly after it was acquired by The Chernin Group at a valuation of $15 million. Along with founder Dave Portnoy, Ayers Badan helped lead Barstool — its website and podcasts, among other ventures — through enormous success, as well as controversies that typically centered around allegations that the brand was misogynistic and sexist. With Ayers Badan and Portnoy guiding the ship, Barstool has been innovative and provocative and appealed greatly to the demographic of young men. It was acquired by PENN Entertainment (an entertainment, sports content and casino gambling company) for a total of more than $500 million between 2020 and 2023.

Last year, Portnoy bought Barstool back for $1 after, The New York Post wrote, “the irreverent brand proved an impediment with state gambling regulators. While Barstool Sportsbook was able to get licensed in most states with legal gambling, it failed to gain licensure in New York, the state with the biggest population that also has legal gambling.”

Ayers Badan, 48, said in a note to staff, “The last two years was all Penn all the time. It was a balancing act and kind of an exercise in futility — trying to generate bets at the same time as protecting a pirate ship while also subtly contorting it to be something more predictable, pacifiable and projectable to match with a casino company. In the last year we sold the company twice. First to Penn for $550M and then to Dave for $1. It seems insane and it was.”

Ayers Badan’s exit was her choice. Portnoy had nothing but kind things to say about her, including a tweet that said in part, “It’s been quite a run and we couldn’t have done it without her. She was everything I dreamed she’d be and more in a CEO.”

In addition, Ayers Badan had nothing but praise for Portnoy, writing, “At the heart of it, I came here to work with Dave. I liked Dave instantly and I trusted him. … There is no one better to make sure Barstool lasts far into the future in the way it was intended than Dave.”

Ayers Badan said in her video that she did everything she wanted to do at Barstool and that she “gave everything that I have.” She hasn’t decided what she will do next, saying, “I’m going to go try to figure out what I want to build into next.”

As far as who will replace Ayers Badan at Barstool, some at Barstool are guessing that Portnoy will assume the role of making the big decisions, although having a CEO with Ayers Badan’s acumen probably would be a good idea.

Behind the scenes in Los Angeles

TheWrap’s Sharon Waxman and Alexei Barrionuevo dig into Kevin Merida leaving the Los Angeles Times as executive editor in “Newsroom Meddling, Money Woes: How A Billionaire Owner Lost His Star Editor at the Los Angeles Times.”

The Times newsroom, and those who follow the media, were surprised by the news. “But,” Waxman and Barrionuevo write, “perhaps they should not have been. In interviews with a half-dozen individuals close to the LA Times news operation, it became clear that Merida’s relationship with Soon-Shiong — though never close — had broken down irreparably by the end of last year over the owner’s interference in newsroom decisions, a lack of support for Merida’s independence as editorial leader and ongoing financial losses with no apparent plan to reverse them.”

A spokesperson for Soon-Shiong said the owner has not interfered in the newsroom.

“But,” Waxman and Barrionuevo wrote, “two knowledgeable individuals confirmed this was the case. In November, Soon-Shiong and his activist daughter Nika told Merida they disagreed with his decision that 20 newsroom journalists be recused from covering the Israel-Gaza war for 90 days after they signed a public statement condemning Israel. They did not demand that the recusal be rescinded, though Soon-Shiong said in an interview last week that he was ‘disappointed’ to not be informed in advance, suggesting he might have prevented the decision at that time had he been told about it.”

TheWrap also reported that Soon-Shiong, a medical doctor and biotechnologist, disagreed with coverage in the “health-science arena.”

TheWrap has plenty more behind-the-scenes coverage.

Media tidbits

• The New York Times with “Best and Worst Moments From the 2023 Emmys.”
• Mary McNamara, culture columnist and critic for the Los Angeles Times, with “Soaked in nostalgia, the best Emmys in years showed how much TV has changed.”
• Axios’ Sara Fischer with “Red Ventures explores sale of CNET.”
• The New Yorker’s Clare Malone with “The Deadly Challenges of War Coverage in Gaza.”
• The sports media site Awful Announcing polled its readers and here is “Your 2023 NFL announcer rankings.”
• Speaking of Awful Announcing, Brandon Contes with “Stephen A. Smith condemns Tony Dungy’s Taylor Swift criticism: ‘What are you talking about?’” By the way, Smith is 100% spot on about Dungy’s dumb comments.

Hot type

The New York Times’ Jonah E. Bromwich with “An Idealistic Cop, a Forbidden Ticket and a Police Career on the Brink.”

More resources for journalists

• The 2024 Poynter Journalism Prizes are now open for entries. To enter, go to the contest website. The deadline for entries is Feb. 16.
• Delve more deeply into your editing skills with Poynter ACES Intermediate Certificate in Editing. Start anytime.
• Transforming Local Crime Reporting Into Public Safety Journalism (Seminar) — Apply now.
• Lead with Influence 2024 (Seminar) — Apply by Jan. 23, for the February training. Also,  offered in June and Oct. 2024.

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

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