Sara Fischer: Inside Fox News’ decision desk ahead of Election Day

This piece is by WWSG exclusive thought leader, Sara Fischer.

Fox News’ historic Arizona election call in 2020 wasn’t premature, the network’s longtime decision desk head Arnon Mishkin told Axios. But heading into this year’s election, Fox News is doing more to ensure the public understands how, why and when it calls certain races.

Why it matters: Fox News’ decision desk isn’t responsible for distributing results to thousands of newsrooms globally like the Associated Press, Edison Research or Decision Desk HQ do, but its coverage is expected to be the most watched of any major network on election night.

• In 2020, Fox News’ prime-time coverage set a record for the most-watched election night coverage in cable news history with 13.7 million total viewers. It’s been the most-watched cable news network by far this election cycle.

Zoom in: In being the first to call Arizona for Joe Biden in 2020, Fox News established itself as an authoritative voice on election night coverage, even if pollsters disagree on how the call was made.

• Mishkin said this year, Fox News’ decision desk has adjusted its models to take into account votes by type, such as mail-in votes versus in-person votes, in the states that provide such data.
• The network will also do more to explain its process in real time to viewers so that they aren’t caught off guard if Fox is the first to call a race for a candidate they weren’t expecting.
• “I think that there’s going to be a much greater focus on making sure that when we make a call, that call is made by the right anchor,” Mishkin said. “We’ve adjusted some of our communication systems to make sure that happens.”

Flashback: In 2020, the network showed the Arizona race call on a map on the screen before an anchor was prepared to fully explain it, Mishkin recalled.

• This year, “we’ve developed a system to make sure that when we make a call, the anchor is in a position to say, ‘we’ve just made this call, and this is the status.'”
• “There were a couple of surprises [in 2020] in terms of everyone being on the same page with the understanding that a call was about to come,” said Martha MacCallum, who will co-anchor Fox News’ election night coverage.
• “I think that we will have a much clearer way of demonstrating why they were able to make that call this time around,” she said, referencing the Arizona decision.

Between the lines: Part of Fox News’ new election night strategy includes giving viewers more real-time data and better graphics to help visualize how close certain vote tallies will be.

• Anchor Bill Hemmer will manage a virtual voter analysis board with new augmented reality (AR) technology that makes population maps, outstanding vote maps, and battleground state historical voting charts much easier for viewers to follow in real time.

• The network will also debut a new Path to 270 map that shows the presidential nominees’ potential path to the critical electoral votes needed to win and a Top 5 Closest Races tool to show updates on races that are too close to call.

“I think with the new technology, we’re able to tell that story in a much better way,” Mishkin said. “If you see it graphically, it becomes much clearer.”

• The graphics, MacCallum said, will help viewers understand “why there might be a delay in one place and a faster number in another place.”
• “I think one of the things that we’re going to make really clear to everyone is what is different state to state,” she added.

The big picture: More news outlets are investing in transparency efforts as a way to hedge against any confusion on Election Day.

• AP is investing significantly more this year in live video shots from voting locations in battleground states that show how the voting process is working on the ground.
• More outlets, such as NBC News, are publishing explainers ahead of the election about how exit polls work and how they plan to use them to make race calls.

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