Four years ago, the favorite channel of American conservatives Fox News struck a major blow by predicting Joe Biden’s victory in Arizona several days before its competitors. During the night from Tuesday to Wednesday, she was still several hours ahead of her rivals by announcing the final victory of Donald Trump.
It was a little before 2:00 a.m. on the American east coast (07:00 GMT) when the news channel, owned by media mogul Rupert Murdoch, assured, based on its projections, that Donald Trump, 78 years old , would become the “47th President of the United States”, thanks to his victory in the states of Wisconsin and Pennsylvania.
The other major channels were only able to confirm the information, which shook the planet, after 10:00 GMT.
This is an undeniable victory for Fox News, which highlights its two faces: on the one hand, that of very politicized columnists, at the forefront of the ideological battles of American conservatives, on the other hand, an ability to play on an equal footing , or even to impose itself on the competition, CNN in the lead, during major information events.
During American election nights, in the absence of rapid official results, it falls to the media to bear the heavy responsibility of announcing a winner.
Behind the scenes of the TV sets, the pressure rests on the “decision desks”, teams of statisticians and analysts who feed the antenna with estimates based on the first results, which are necessarily fragmented.
A consortium of channels (ABC, CBS, NBC News, CNN) works with the Edison Research institute which provides exit polls, projections and counting, while Fox News works, like the Associated Press news agency, with the NORC Institute at the University of Chicago.
In 2020, Fox News had already distinguished itself by awarding, only a few hours after the polls closed, a crucial victory in Arizona to Democrat Joe Biden. The announcement, confirmed several days later by other media, provoked the fury of Donald Trump and his supporters, which subsequently had serious and unpredictable consequences.
Far from benefiting from its speed, Fox News had seen its viewers migrate to competing channels in the conservative media universe. Rupert Murdoch’s channel then welcomed with open arms on its sets those close to Donald Trump who denounced, without proof, fraud and pointed out the voting machines of the company Dominion Voting Systems.
Dominion sued Fox News for defamation and the channel paid the staggering sum of $787.5 million in 2023 to settle the case out of court and avoid an embarrassing trial.
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