Thread by @vermontgmg

THREAD: Covering today's election results will be one of the hardest challenges the news media has faced in modern history. @vivian & I talked to a lot of smart people and came up with 10 principles that news orgs should abide by as they ready coverage: cjr.org/politics/2020-…

If you're a reporter or editor, I hope you'll take a few minutes to read these principles & think about what it means for your own work and your own news organization and how you should responsibly report and frame the unofficial tallies tonight: cjr.org/politics/2020-…

1) Problems are not failures. Make sure to draw lines today between "normal stuff" going wrong and systemic failures. Not every mishap shows a rigged system. At the same time, there are known signs of voter suppression—and systemic problems should be reported as such.

2) Know the calendar. The public (and Trump!) expects winners within hours of the polls closing, but the numbers collected on election night are not decisive. Just because a state takes a week or longer to finalize results, that doesn’t jeopardize the integrity of the system.

Explain clearly in your coverage how what dates matter and how it's totally fine for counts to be slow. We've *NEVER* gotten full counts or full results on election night. There should be *zero* expectation that happens tonight.

3)  Manage expectations using careful language. The news media can unintentionally mislead the audience about the media’s role. Be precise. The media “projects” winners; it should not at any point this week “declare” a winner, “call” a race, or “count” a vote.

4) Explain this year will be different. Many states aren't going to initially know their “denominator”—that it is, how many total ballots have been cast—because of the rise of mail-in and absentee ballot. That # is critical for "projecting" a winner; thus, things might be slow.

5) Prepare for a possible shift as ballots are counted. Some races—and entire states!—that look close tonight might not end up close at all by Thursday. What looks like an early lead might evaporate. None of these shifts should be considered prima facie evidence of fraud.

6)  Provide vote counts and election numbers in context. The way tallies are presented or reported can unintentionally undermine trust in the legitimacy of the election—especially this year, when record levels of mail-in votes will add complexity.

There are no election "results" until all votes are counted. There's no way to "flip" the election if votes are still being counted, just as it doesn't matter what order voters show up at the polls today. Don't frame lead changes as "flips" tonight or tomorrow.

7) Results aren’t “late” because the winner isn’t known tonight. If the election is a blowout, we’ll know tonight or maybe noon tomorrow. If it’s close, it’s normal and lawful for counting to continue for weeks. What you think is “slow” isn’t. It’s the system functioning.

8) THIS IS REALLY IMPORTANT: Don’t parrot premature victory claims. And don’t frame premature declarations as “both sides” disagreements—e.g., “Trump says he’s won, while Biden says he hasn’t.” There are no winners until the whole vote is counted everywhere. Don't play that game.

9) Hold officials accountable without undermining voter confidence. How reporters frame and report on controversies, problems, and candidate complaints will help determine public confidence in the integrity of the outcome. Support vote counters. They're doing hard work this week.

10) Be prepared. Ground yourself in data, history, and constitutional and electoral law. Well before Election Day, news organizations should work to vet and line up a host of credible experts and analysts beyond the “normal” pundits, like constitutional and electoral law experts.