ABC News 'accidently' airs 'random' US election results showing Harris winning Pennsylvania
Kamala Harris (File photo)
ABC affiliate WNEP-TV 'accidentally' aired the US election results, just a week before the election, showing Democrat presidential nominee Kamala Harris winning Pennsylvania.
The graphic by the US news agency on Sunday (Oct 27) showed Harris winning the state with 52% of votes while the Republican nominee Donald Trump gained 47% of the votes.
The graphic suddenly popped up during the channel's coverage of the Formula 1 Mexico Grand Prix, and now has sparked online conspiracy theories and criticism of the network.
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WNEP-TV later clarified that the numbers were generated "randomly" while testing the equipment and that they were not based on any actual votes.
“Those numbers should not have appeared on the screen, and it was an error by WNEP that they did,” the broadcast station reportedly told Daily Mail about the ‘glitch.’
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'Tremendous pressure'
A somewhat similar incident was occurred during the 2020 US presidential elections and in the year 2000 as well by American news platforms.
On November 3, 2020, just a few hours after the polls closed, America's most popular conservative channel Fox News struck a body blow to Trump's chances by calling Arizona for Biden.
The announcement, confirmed several days later by other media, infuriated the Trump camp.
"The stakes are very high... there is tremendous pressure to capture viewers by giving them information as quickly as it is available, but the greatest risk is sacrificing accuracy for speed," said Costas Panagopoulos, a political science professor at Northeastern University and former member of the NBC decision desk.
Maybe most notorious was the U-turn networks made in 2000 after Florida was prematurely called for Democratic contender Al Gore.
To avoid a repeat of the credibility-damaging episode, media are relying on more advanced analytics that will use not just exit polls but also surveys of early voters.
(With inputs from agencies)
