Midterm Media Coverage: A Night of Narrative Search

(CTN NEWS) – News organizations covering the midterm media results spent the night trying to find a narrative.

Despite being armed with statistics and projections, reporters remained wary of concluding the nation’s political future due to tight races across the country. TV news couldn’t even impose a storyline on election night.

“This is going to be bare knuckles all the way,” said Fox News Channel analyst Brit Hume.

During his midterm media speech, he referred to Pennsylvania’s Senate race between John Fetterman and Mehmet Oz, but he could have also talked about several other races.

As CNN’s “magic wall” spun through rural Georgia counties trying to decipher that Senate race, John King grumbled again, “That’s why you brew coffee.”

At Midterm Media Coverage, Fetterman declared victory after 1 a.m. Eastern Time on Wednesday in the tight race, but the Associated Press had not called a winner.

 

“The Needle” was brought back by the New York Times to project party control of the House and Senate. Through the evening, it barely moved, showing a toss-up in the Senate and a narrow GOP lead in the House.

According to the Associated Press, “control of Congress hung in the balance early Wednesday.” The Washington Post’s lead headline reads, “Control of Congress up for grabs as many key contests remain undecided.”

NBC News’ Garrett Haake and CNN’s Manu Raju did live shots after midnight in a mostly empty room where Republican House leader Kevin McCarthy had been hoping to celebrate becoming speaker.

“It’s going to be a difficult night, but this is going to be a lot tougher than Republicans anticipated,” Haake said.
As Rachel Maddow of MSNBC put it, it’s not a slam dunk for either party.

As a Fox News Channel commentator, Kellyanne Conway grew impatient with discussions about Republicans not performing to expectations.

“That’s enough,” she said. It’s fine with us.”

Several television networks made an extra effort on Tuesday to have personnel on hand to deal with threats to democracy, such as election deniers or attempts to prevent voting. As a result, they didn’t have much to do.

News organizations use statistics skillfully.s. ABC News showed a chart illustrating how election deniers performed in the election.

In CBS’ poll, respondents were divided into interesting categories like “pressured parents” and “young and restless.”

“Late Show” host Stephen Colbert read election results and listened to John Dickerson’s analysis during CBS’s midterm media coverage.

News organizations stressed transparency and how early voting and state rules on counting votes have made counting election results more challenging.

“Voting patterns have changed over the past decade,” said CNN’s King.

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