Please avoid declaring winners of primary elections in states until after the polls have closed in those states. Please also instruct your subsidiaries and program producers and directors to avoid declaring winners of primary elections in states until after the polls have closed in those states. Please make this policy from now on.
Why is this important?
There are rumors that the media will announce at 8 PM EDST (5 PM PDST) that Hillary Clinton has won the California Primary - three hours before the polls close. This is in keeping with the media announcing Ronald Reagan won the 1980 election before the polls closed in the Central, Mountain, and Pacific time zones and the sudden declaration the George W. Bush had won the 2000 election.
There was a case where public furor caused one of the three corporate networks to avoid running a scene in a show that was to assert that President Clinton's White House passed up an opportunity to assassinate Osama bin Laden, something that did not happen. Media tampering with politics, unfortunately, happens and it could happen on June 7.
The media, including PBS, have also over-covered Mr. Trump and ignored, disparaged, or said 'he can't win' about Senator Sanders, strongly suggesting a strong media bias that is fundamentally incompatible with the proper and vital role of news sources in a democracy.
The public needs to monitor what the media say to assure that all information needed by the public to make informed decisions is available without lies, spin and explicit or covert electioneering and that opinions are clearly identified as such.
