TV Stations to Delay Reports on Election

Three West Coast CBS affiliated stations, believing that the TV networks’ policy of reporting results of the presidential race before the polls close here discourages some viewers from voting, have come up with a solution: They will not broadcast any network election coverage until just before 8 p.m. Tuesday.

“It’s the ethically right thing to do,” said Jan Allen, news director at KXTV in Sacramento. “News should not affect the outcome of any story, and when you broadcast projections before the polls close, you affect local and state races here. That goes against everything I believe in.”

CBS affiliates in Portland, Ore. and Eugene, Ore. also plan to delay plugging into the network feed that begins in the afternoon, sticking with local programming instead.

Spokesmen at ABC and NBC said that as of Thursday, none of their affiliates had decided to follow the three CBS stations’ lead. And all three network-owned stations in Los Angeles said that they will broadcast election results as the network provides them.

“We’re concerned with bringing our viewers the news,” said KNBC-TV Channel 4 spokeswoman Regina Miyamoto.

Roger Bell, news director at KABC-TV Channel 7, said that it would be a dangerous precedent for any news organization to withhold information because officials thought it was in the best interest of the public. “What else might they withhold?” Bell said. “And ultimately I think the result of that can only be bad because the free flow of information is always to the betterment of the citizenry.”

Independent KCAL-TV Channel 9 will begin its election coverage at 5 p.m. “We feel the information is widely available through CNN and the three networks and we believe is it our responsibility to report the information as it becomes available,” said news director Bob Henry.

The broadcast, a KCAL spokeswoman said, will also encourage viewers to go out and vote no matter the status of the presidential race.

A coalition of governors and several political groups, including the Republican and Democratic National Committees, protested the networks’ policy this week, but the networks showed no sign of changing their plans.

In a letter, Gov. John Waihee of Hawaii, president of the Democratic Governors Assn., told network officials that “because of these projections, many Americans feel their vote does not count.”

Tom Goodman, a spokesman for CBS News, said that the three stations choosing not to carry the network’s early coverage will be performing “a tremendous disservice to their viewers. The election night results withheld from viewers will be available on radio and other television stations, not only in those cities but across the nation and around the world. . . . It’s very difficult to have the information, to know for a fact a President has been elected, and not report it.”