Why did the media delay its Florida recount study?
The New York Times and other news companies say the Sept. 11 terror attacks made the timing inappropriate. But media experts now say enough time has passed.
By Eric Boehlert
Oct. 5, 2001 | It has unfolded like a "What-if?" debate lifted from a journalism school seminar.
What if a consortium of prestigious news organizations, including the New York Times, CNN, the Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal, banded together and spent the last nine months (and $1 million) analyzing disputed ballots from last year's divisive presidential election in Florida. And then, just as the results were about to be released, terrorists attacked America and the nation responded by declaring war on terrorism.
As editors and producers, do you run the potentially explosive recount results, or do you shelve them?
For executives of the real-life news consortium, busy devoting unprecedented resources to covering the biggest breaking news story of their lifetime, the answer was easy: shelve the recount story "indefinitely."
That's the word the New York Times used to alert readers in passing about its decision. In an essay about the political fallout of the terror attacks that ran in the paper's This Week in Review section on Sunday, Sept. 23, staff reporter Rick Berke revealed the Times' decision almost offhandedly, remarking that the recount "might have stoked the partisan tensions" and "now seems utterly irrelevant."
That phrase raised some eyebrows, suggesting to some readers that the New York Times and its partners had decided what type of news was in the nation's best interest. (The other members of the consortium did not even bother to inform their readers and viewers of their decision.)
Consortium members stress their decision was dictated more by newsroom priorities than political considerations; during the current terrorism conflict, they insist, they simply don't have the editorial resources, time or space to devote to the complicated recount story. But one representative at an organization involved in the project concedes "there is some truth" to the idea news organizations are uncomfortable revisiting a divisive topic like the 2000 election as the country prepares for some kind of military strike.
The coalition's decision has sparked debate in journalism circles about whether it should be up to editors to decide when is the best time to report news, let alone whether national events clearly deemed newsworthy before Sept. 11 are now "irrelevant."
"I think you can't and shouldn't stop reporting, from disclosing the results of, a legitimate news story, and this is a legitimate news story," says Robert Zelnick, former ABC correspondent, current acting director of the journalism department at Boston University, and the author of a new book about the contested Florida vote, "Winning Florida: How the Bush Team Fought the Battle."
"I don't think historically anybody has proven good at news management and we shouldn't even try it. News is when news occurs."
But Bill Hamilton, an assistant managing editor at the Washington Post who oversees the paper's enterprise projects, suggests the recount effort is a different breed of news that doesn't necessarily demand immediate attention: "We're not covering up that the president has cancer. It's a study. And if we're going to do it, we want to do it right. So we'll take our time on it. The fact is it's not something that has to go in the paper right away."
Hamilton notes the initial deadline for completing the study was last April, but it's been delayed many times due to logistical hurdles. He says the recount study will likely run by the end of the year.