Deborah Fisher

Thursday, November 9, 2000

The three front pages of the Caller-Times reporting Tuesday’s presidential results were right, wrong, then right again. The second remake of page one was based on network television news, which declared that Bush had won Florida, which later turned out to be too close to call. After Al Gore retracted his concession to George W. Bush, the Caller-Times remade page one for the third time, showing the race still undecided. One warning sign that was overlooked was the fact that the Associated Press, unlike the TV networks, did not call Florida for Bush. The importance of that no-call was made clear Wednesday morning.

Oops. Dewey defeats Truman, again

Deborah Fisher
Vice President and Editor

We printed three newspapers on election night. Two went out the door.
   The first one out, "Bush whups Gore, Governor wins presidency in historic showdown" could be considered a collector's item. There are about 13,000 of those newspapers somewhere in South Texas. As of this writing, the jury's still out on whether that headline will prove correct, perhaps as early as today. But it was wrong Wednesday morning.

Harry Truman holds up an edition of the Chicago Daily Tribune, which mistakenly announced that Thomas Dewey had won the presidential election of 1948.

   The "Bush whups" newspaper is the one we put on our press at about 2:30 a.m., about 50 minutes after the major television networks declared that Gov. George W. Bush had won Florida (and thus the nation) with 97 percent reported and a leading margin of 50,000 votes. It was also about 20 minutes after news agencies reported that Vice President Al Gore called Gov. Bush, conceding the election.
   An earlier Caller-Times front page, headlined, "Late night thriller, Bush, Gore look to Florida in historic showdown," never made it to the trucks. A break on our press slowed things down after about 1,700 copies. By then, we had what we thought was the winner, and we replaced the "Late night thriller" with our updated headline. Most of the "thrillers" ended up in the dumpster. (A few thoughtful editors rescued a couple of copies.)

For a collection of other newspaper's front pages on this election day, click here.

   The press was rolling with the winner at 2:30 a.m., so most of the newsroom staff went home after a long, tense night on deadline. A handful of core editors stayed behind to watch the presses for a few more minutes, check papers and get ready for the next day.
   Our sense of relief at having the winner was shortlived.
   Rumblings began on the wire as early as 2:15 a.m. that the Florida race might not be as locked up as reported. By 2:45 a.m., it was clear that the Florida race was still undecided. Now, with 98 percent of the precincts reported, Bush's lead had dwindled to 6,000.
   We started working on another front page. About 3 a.m., Bush spokeswoman Karen Hughes announced that Gore had telephoned Bush again - now to retract his concession.
   Florida was a tossup. We wouldn't know for a few days. A recount was certain.
   At about this time - 3 a.m. CDT - editors around the country were stopping the presses. Changing a mistake in a newspaper took a bit more time than changing it on TV.
   Dozens of newspapers had sent some variation of a "Bush wins" headline for their first, second or third editions. The Austin American-Statesman had to stop the presses after printing 59,000 newspapers with the front-page headline, "Bush!"
   We stopped the presses, too, and at 3:15 a.m., the Caller-Times had a new headline: "Cliffhanger. Gore admits defeat to Bush, then retracts concession."
   I carried around with me all night a scrap of paper with about 15 variations of headlines in different ink colors reflecting the different times I had jotted a new headline scenario.
   That scrap was lost sometime between 2:45 a.m. and 3:15 a.m., perhaps swept into a trash can, or buried on a desk under a mountain of page proofs, dummy sheets or meticulous deadline schedules, now marked through and messy.
   At 4 a.m., some of the editors who had stayed gathered downstairs in our pressroom to watch the startup of the final press run. After the press began to churn, kicking up to its 25,000 newspapers per hour speed, it became too noisy to say much more to each other.
   We left the building, weaving through the warehouse where workers were rushing to get newspaper bundles for the carriers. Outside it was cold - about 55 degrees. Sometime between the morning when most of us arrived at work and 4 a.m., the temperature had dropped dramatically. Trucks were lined up, waiting. No doubt, papers were going to be late.
   Wednesday morning I went looking for that scrap of paper with my headline scenarios. I couldn't find it. The desks already had been cleaned, and the trashcans emptied. Despite the months of talk and projections, the scenarios had become as irrelevant as yesterday's trash.
   A framed photo sat on a copy editor's desk - a famous Associated Press photo that I must have overlooked the night before. President Harry Truman is holding up a copy of the Chicago Daily Tribune, published early in the morning after the election, on Nov. 3, 1948, with the headline, "Dewey Defeats Truman."
   If only the 2000 presidential election had been so simple.
   (Deborah Fisher can be reached by phone at 886-3607 or by e-mail at fisherd@caller.com.)
  

 
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