How news organizations give the OK during primary season

Every few minutes after a group of states closed their polls, Washington Post Executive Editor Leonard Downie, Jr. talked to an editor in the Washingtonpost.com newsroom to chew over the numbers and decide how to call the next election result. It's at once scientific, hurried and sometimes inexact.

The decision-making process on election night is not organized in a perfect hierarchy. Online politics editor Jason Manning said the news outlets are all watching each other, and the rush to report results first leaves room for potential errors of exuberance.

The major television networks are usually the first to call a race for a candidate. The nature of being a live medium applies pressure for them to get it first, said Manning. Networks that can afford it use modeling run by political scientists to augment polling data, and most major news organizations subscribe to the National Election Pool, which provides collated exit polling data.

The Washington Post relies on the official results published by the Associated Press, but it also has its own polling data. There was one point during the night when Newsweek called a race, but the Post held back. Manning said it’s not so much that Newsweek had unique data, but that they may have interpreted the information differently.

The best insight, said Manning, comes from reporters who get off-the-record information from campaign staff, ranging from hard data to sentiments. Reporters’ notes can make the difference between one news organization calling a race and another holding back.

It’s not only the networks that want to be quick in calling a race. An Obama campaign worker who called into Washingtonpost.com’s live web coverage of the debate said, "An early call is not just good for the psyche, but for the delegate camp."

Katherine is an intern in the politics division of Washingtonpost.com