Networks Urge Caution on a Chaotic Midterm Night

As television, it made for a lot of airtime to fill.

CNN devoted much of its early coverage to a pas de deux between Mr. King, the network’s motor-mouthed map maestro, and Jake Tapper, the network’s lead anchor on a major election night. A professorial Mr. Tapper, in his first stint succeeding the once-ubiquitous Wolf Blitzer in the top role, scribbled in a reporter’s notebook and seemed a bit awed as Mr. King expertly dissected precinct numbers from across the country.

“My mom is from North Carolina,” Mr. Tapper ventured at one point. “Can we look that up?”

The facts-and-figures approach on CNN reflected in part the priorities of its new chief, Chris Licht, who has bemoaned partisan panels and hyped commentary. The network did not even bother to feature all-star analysts like Dana Bash and Chris Wallace until 105 minutes into its prime-time broadcast.

It was also a contrast to Fox News, which featured its popular conservative hosts Laura Ingraham and Tucker Carlson, who used his appearance to raise concerns about potential electoral problems in the key state of Arizona. Right-leaning panelists like Kellyanne Conway, Trey Gowdy and Katie Pavlich also shared the spotlight with Ms. MacCallum and her co-anchor, Bret Baier.

Yet Fox News, like the others, urged caution. In 2018, Fox’s decision desk declared Democrats the new majority in the House at 9:33 p.m. As of 10:30 p.m. on Tuesday, the network’s analysts had offered no such predictions.

Fox News did feature one left-leaning pundit, Juan Williams, on its broadcast. On MSNBC, it was virtually liberals across the board: comfort TV for Democrats bracing for a rough night.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/08/business/media/midterm-elections-media-tv.html