News organizations were preparing on Friday for a possibly decisive call in the 2020 presidential race, even as President Trump and his allies continued to lie about the integrity of the election and make baseless claims about voter fraud, reports The NYTimes.
Cable news networks had their A-list anchors at the ready in anticipation of a historic call, but the urgency of the morning gave way to a hurry-up-and-wait mood as ballot counters in Arizona, Georgia, Nevada and Pennsylvania continued their work.
The anchors made plenty of references to President Trump’s narrowing path to victory as onscreen graphics showed Joseph R. Biden Jr. closing in on the 270 electoral votes needed to secure the White House, but the network decision desks were in charge. With no decisive call and hours to fill, the solution was to vamp.
The networks reported that Biden planned to address the nation in prime-time on Friday while continuing to note false claims about voting irregularities made by Trump and some of his aides and supporters. Some of the president’s usual allies were not convinced of the fraud claims.
Fox News and The Associated Press, the only two major news organizations to have projected Mr. Biden the winner of Arizona, had Mr. Biden at 264 electoral votes on Friday. Other media outlets — including a network consortium that includes ABC, CBS, CNN and NBC — have declined to call the Arizona race. The number of electoral votes they have given Biden is 253.
Shortly before noon, Washington reporters at The Wall Street Journal received a memo, which was obtained by The New York Times, telling them that the paper’s standards department had endorsed the use of the term “president-elect” to describe Joseph R. Biden Jr., if The A.P. called the overall race in his favor.
The Times will refer to the victor as “president-elect” on first reference, after the newspaper calls a winner of the entire election, according to a spokeswoman.
On Fox News, the anchor Bret Baier told viewers that Mr. Biden “would become the president-elect of the United States” if the network’s decision desk projected a Biden win in Nevada or Pennsylvania.
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