One Man’s Opinion: How Media Bias Helps NO ONE By Bill Crane
It is Election Night, November 7, 2000, and my first election providing live on-air analysis. It would also become the longest election in my closing on a quarter-century in this business. That night, a well-known, but somewhat unproven vice president of the United States was considered the favorite to beat a younger governor of a major southwestern state. The governor’s father had been president, and he was the third generation in his family’s political dynasty. The contest of George W. Bush versus Al Gore, also of another family political dynasty, would ultimately be decided weeks later by the U.S. Supreme Court. Gore had already conceded a narrow loss to George Bush, based on exit polling data and the state of Florida being declared for Bush. But as the night wore on, the numbers in Florida kept getting closer, and as Bush was heading toward the stage with his acceptance speech in hand, Gore called back to withdraw his concession. The nation would not have a declared president-elect until December 12, 2000, when the U.S. Supreme Court ended a series of Florida ballot recounts, focusing on Broward and Palm Beach counties. Bush’s margin at this point was down to several hundred votes, and the Florida Supreme Court was about to add additional jurisdictions to the hand re-tally. Ending the recounts, with Bush ahead, in a split 5-4 decision awarded Florida’s Electoral College votes to Bush, who would later win the election by just 5 votes in the Electoral College. Less than a month later, as Congress certified those Electoral College votes, with Vice-President Al Gore presiding over his own defeat tally, several Democratic members of Florida’s congressional delegation would object to the Florida tally – and presiding officer Gore would rule them out of order. Two weeks later, on January 20, 2001, with a blizzard blanketing D.C. and a bit more than frost in the air on the Inauguration stage, Gore would gaze straight ahead, with jaw set, as just a few feet away Bush was administered the oath of office, and once again the United States successfully completed a peaceful transition of power, something which still remains for many an envy of the free world. During those weeks of recounts, there were protests aplenty in Tallahassee, the Florida state capital. Some election officials took catcalls and hate mail, particularly Florida’s Secretary of State, while the candidates themselves remained above the fray; and although each had teams on the ground where the recounts were occurring, the major news networks and legacy newspapers were not also stoking the flames of passionate support on either side. But at that time the Fox News Channel was only four years old, nothing of the force in politics which it has become since, and though MSNBC had launched the same year as Fox (1996), it was then known more for talk-shows and longer format NBC News shows and reruns. Today we have a former president referring to his own much larger loss of four close states, and the White House along with that, as the “crime of the century.” His acolytes chant “Stop the Steal,” now entering their second year, and supposedly credible candidates for the U.S. Senate propose initiatives like election police and forensic audits of every election before winners are announced. And from the current winning side, hoping to make their party wins perpetual, we have voter reforms disguised in a Trojan Horse overhaul of state and local election laws to be taken over by the federal government. While one party
DO YOU WANT TO PROMOTE YOUR ORGANIZATION OR AIR YOUR TV SHOW?
WATC is a non-profit television station serving Metro Atlanta and beyond with family, christian, and educational programming for over 25 years! Available on all platforms:
Including cable, satellite, digital antena, Roku, live streaming and through our app in the App Store, Google Play and more! **WATC TOO does not air currently on Xfinity or Direct TV**
Contact us: www.WATC.tv (770) 300-9828 info@WATC.tv
Follow us: facebook.com/watctvatlanta @watctvatlanta WATC TV 57 Atlanta
Continued on page 23 February 2022 Our Town Gwinnett
PAGE 21
