CNN
November 5, 2020
CNN put together a stimulating visual for election night. Democratic candidate Joe Biden was representing blue, while Republican incumbent Donald Trump was representing red. The screen featuring the map of the U.S. was at the forefront, giving consistent updates of votes coming in. Overall, CNN kept things neutral with patriotic hues to emphasize American democracy.
Along with CNN’s clear and extensive visuals, the reporters spent hours on end analyzing and reporting on the voting results, all the way down to analyzing how one county in a state may affect the entirety of the electoral college votes. John King and other reporters such as Wolf Blitzer and Anderson Cooper spoke for hours on end without break, and continuously updated the CNN prediction as the results came in. The program took a few breaks and had conversations on each of the states expectations, and focused specifically on the swing states that would sway the results of the election.
CNN was trying to convey was that everyone needs to be patient. This is an unprecedented time for voting and it could take a while to count all the votes
With the 2020 election votes still being counted, many news sources are trying to keep the people up to date on what is happening regarding the future of the presidency. CNN being one of those sources, we took a long look at the way it seemed to operate.
“There isn’t any magic involved in projecting races, sadly, it’s really all math,” CNN’s polling director Jennifer Agiesta said. “There are a number of things we are looking for in each state to have confidence in a projection.”
One of the main messages CNN was trying to convey was that everyone needs to be patient. This is an unprecedented time for voting and it could take a while to count all the votes so that every vote counts. They used different idioms throughout the night like “we’ll find out for sure when the cards are turned over” to show their message of patience.
CNN did a good job of eliminating bias in their language. For instance, they had a former Obama administration Van Jones representing the liberal side, and former republican Rick Santorum give the more conservative view, and overall kept an equal balance throughout the program.