Back in twenty-twenty Fox News made waves by being first to call Arizona for Joe Biden‚ which led to some in-house problems. The networkʼs approach changed big-time for this years election night coverage
During the recent presidential race between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris‚ Fox took a more middle-of-the-road position: While not leading the pack they didnt wait for all major networks either. Several smaller channels (including news-newcomer NewsNation and right-leaning Newsmax) jumped ahead to declare Trumps win; Fox followed their lead shortly after
The big-name networks — ABC‚ CBS CNN‚ NBC and Associated Press — were much more careful with their timing taking almost 4 extra hours to make the same announcement. This timing-gap showed how different news outlets now handle election-night pressure: some rush to be first while others double-check every detail before speaking up (which explains the varying announcement times)