As an European, I'm struck by depending on media outlets announcements. Here we have official government committee, which gathers official results from all districts, sums the results and proclaims winner. Does USA have official, federal bureau for election results?
Media outlets? Does USA have official, federal bureau for election results?
It's because Americans are stuck up by a stupid word "call".
I CALL HEADS. "calling" just means placing money on something.
THE FORECAST CALLS FOR RAIN. "calling" means you place your money, or your bet of likelihood, on the outcome you have reason to believe is most likely.
THE UMPIRE CALLS IT AN 'OUT'. "calling" means that someone in authority has made an official decision.
The problem is that the media and the American public confuse the second and third senses of the word. A media outlet will predict an outcome, which is fine, and not in itself newsworthy. But the media likes to borrow the authoritativeness of the third sense of the word, and the American public lap it up, and indeed the third sense of the word is an important newsworthy event. So Americans will subconsciously think that "Fox calls Arizona for Biden" is an important event, an important authoritative announcement about the result, when it's not: it's is a small bunch of well-informed people sitting behind a desk writing sums and making their best likelihood estimates.
We then get perverse incentives. Every media outlet likes to be the first one to break a news story. They naturally want to be the first to call the outcome, because breaking news is the way a media outlet establishes its importance. They will therefore make their calls as early as they possibly can, sometimes too early. Their need to break news early is in conflict with the need to give accurate predictions. They give predictions based on exit polls because that lets them make their call 24 hours earlier than waiting for the first official tallies.
And the American public lap it up. They somehow get the idea that it's inevitable that official counts take a long time, that there can be final official certified results until weeks or months in. They have the same idea that it's too hard for officials to calculate how much tax you owe and you must instead ask private companies to do the calculation. But I digress.
All we need to hear from the officials doing the count is, "There have been 50 million votes for X, and 40 million votes for Y, and there are 8 million votes left to count". As soon as we get to that point, which officials usually reach within a day or so, then we know that officially there is no way for Y to catch up. We don't need final numbers. (And if there are any races where the difference is too close, and it's possible for the as-yet-uncounted votes to swing it either way? then it's too early to know, and it's usually irresponsible of media outlets to make a call).
I hate the word "call". I like how 538 and BBC have avoided it almost entirely, and stick to the better word "project".
THE RECIPE CALLS FOR FLOUR. Just so we have more confusing senses of the word "call".
Media outlets? (Score:5, Insightful)
As an European, I'm struck by depending on media outlets announcements. Here we have official government committee, which gathers official results from all districts, sums the results and proclaims winner.
Does USA have official, federal bureau for election results?
Re:Media outlets? (Score:2)
Media outlets? Does USA have official, federal bureau for election results?
It's because Americans are stuck up by a stupid word "call".
I CALL HEADS. "calling" just means placing money on something.
THE FORECAST CALLS FOR RAIN. "calling" means you place your money, or your bet of likelihood, on the outcome you have reason to believe is most likely.
THE UMPIRE CALLS IT AN 'OUT'. "calling" means that someone in authority has made an official decision.
The problem is that the media and the American public confuse the second and third senses of the word. A media outlet will predict an outcome, which is fine, and not in itself newsworthy. But the media likes to borrow the authoritativeness of the third sense of the word, and the American public lap it up, and indeed the third sense of the word is an important newsworthy event. So Americans will subconsciously think that "Fox calls Arizona for Biden" is an important event, an important authoritative announcement about the result, when it's not: it's is a small bunch of well-informed people sitting behind a desk writing sums and making their best likelihood estimates.
We then get perverse incentives. Every media outlet likes to be the first one to break a news story. They naturally want to be the first to call the outcome, because breaking news is the way a media outlet establishes its importance. They will therefore make their calls as early as they possibly can, sometimes too early. Their need to break news early is in conflict with the need to give accurate predictions. They give predictions based on exit polls because that lets them make their call 24 hours earlier than waiting for the first official tallies.
And the American public lap it up. They somehow get the idea that it's inevitable that official counts take a long time, that there can be final official certified results until weeks or months in. They have the same idea that it's too hard for officials to calculate how much tax you owe and you must instead ask private companies to do the calculation. But I digress.
All we need to hear from the officials doing the count is, "There have been 50 million votes for X, and 40 million votes for Y, and there are 8 million votes left to count". As soon as we get to that point, which officials usually reach within a day or so, then we know that officially there is no way for Y to catch up. We don't need final numbers. (And if there are any races where the difference is too close, and it's possible for the as-yet-uncounted votes to swing it either way? then it's too early to know, and it's usually irresponsible of media outlets to make a call).
I hate the word "call". I like how 538 and BBC have avoided it almost entirely, and stick to the better word "project".
THE RECIPE CALLS FOR FLOUR. Just so we have more confusing senses of the word "call".