The major TV news organizations aren't just getting ready for Tuesday night, but for multiple days of rolling coverage. “We are going into election day with a ton of preparation, but very few preconceptions,” says NBC News president Noah Oppenheim in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter. “We want to be prepared for every contingency. We think it is very possible we will have a call at some point that night, possibly in the wee hours of the early morning the next day, or it may take many days after that. We need to be ready from a personnel, staffing standpoint to handle all of those possibilities.” ABC News president James Goldston adds: "I think this is obviously a very unique election, it is the first-ever election that has taken place during a nationwide pandemic, and that introduces just a degree of uncertainty into the entire proceedings that we haven't seen before. We have put elaborate plans in place to essentially staff this and run with this for as long as is necessary.” Meanwhile, CBS News president Susan Zirinsky, emphasizes that this year's election is taking place in an unprecedented year. “This is an incredibly complex election. This is an unpredictable election, and we have what will be absolutely, almost guaranteed, a record number of voters,” she tells The Hollywood Reporter. “But what has to be acknowledged is that it is happening in what has been one of the most cataclysmic years of events. You have COVID, you have systemic racism cracking open this country, you have police injustice, and this is all happening in the midst of what is a very dramatic, important presidential election, with two of the most different candidates than you could possibly have put head-to-head. In the context of this enormous backdrop of things happening, it is really intense. … This is going to be wild, buckle up.”
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TOPICS: CBS News, Fox News Channel, MSNBC, James Goldston, Joe Biden, Noah Oppenheim, Susan Zirinsky, 2020 Presidential Election, ABC News, Cable News, NBC News, Trump Presidency