<nettime> When information travels at 'internet speed'

[John Armitage <john.armitage@unn.ac.uk>]

_Le Monde Diplomatique_, December 2000.

http://www.monde-diplomatique.fr/en/2000/12/

A PRESIDENCY WEAKENED

When information travels at
"internet speed"

S.H. and L.W.

A few months ago, rather than invoking the peculiarities of the US
electoral system and its fundamentally unrepresentative character, the
major newspapers, even those reputed to be serious, preferred to analyse
the personal traits of the two main candidates, the one "uptight" or
"relaxed", the other "moronic" or "haughty".

This September most of the media were ecstatic: "Now even politics in the
US is moving at internet speed" (1). Three weeks after the polling
stations closed we still did not know who the next US president would be.
But at "internet speed" the US media proclaimed a victor, then denied it,
then had posted another winner, only to contradict themselves again.

According to Howard Kurtz, a journalist at The Washington Post, "this
whole system of calling a state first may have a lot to do with the
media's appetite to be first, to be sensational. After all, we could wait
until all the votes are counted. Might be less dramatic, but we'd
certainly get it right." Sam Donaldson, a star newscaster on ABC,
disagreed: "I think it has to do with being competitive. I mean,
competition is what drives our capitalistic system. If you can come up
with a better system, since communism doesn't work, I want to listen. But,
at the moment, we are competitors. And my friend Dan Rather [CBS news
anchor], I love him, I think he is a great man, but on the few occasions
when I have had the privilege of being out in the field with him, I tried
to bash his head in because we are competitors. And that's what drives us.
And if we at ABC said ... 'We are going to pledge that we will never
project again, we will wait until all of the votes in any state has
reached the point when it is mathematically impossible' ... the next time
around no one would watch us."

Donaldson expresses the root of the matter. When journalists subordinate
their mission to provide accurate information to being concerned with
boosting audience ratings - and thus to increase profits earned for the
owners of their companies (2) - everything else follows. And follow it
did. Between 2.16 and 2.20 a.m., fed by the same provider of voting
estimates, the top five news networks - with Fox first and ABC last -
announced that Bush had been elected president. Gore immediately called
Bush to concede, only to retract later. The victor for the seat of senator
for the state of Washington will likely determine the political balance of
the Senate. It was also called prematurely on election night; indeed, it
is still undetermined three weeks later.

These are also errors that cannot be corrected. In a close election,
projections made public while voting is still underway can affect the
turn-out, and thus the result. In Florida, for instance, the most
staunchly Republican counties to the west are in a different time zone
from the eastern counties. They were still voting when one television
channel, then another, then another, "projected" a Gore victory in the
state. A scoop of this sort could have cost Bush thousands of votes.

When, a few hours later, Fox News announced this time that Bush had been
elected, it was thanks to another estimate of the Florida vote. An
estimate issued prematurely by one John Ellis Bush, who explained last
year: "I am loyal to my cousin." The said cousin is impatient to move into
the White House.

(1) Headline in The Wall Street Journal Europe, Brussels, 21 September
2000.

(2) In the US the main media companies belong to General Electric (NBC),
Rupert Murdoch's News Corp (Fox), Walt Disney (ABC), Viacom Inc (CBS) and
Time Warner Inc (CNN). Whereas in the 1970s 50 companies controlled half
of the US media, they are now in the hands of only six conglomerates.

Translated by Harry Forster
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