CBS News PRESS RELEASE

October 13, 2004
 
DAN RATHER WILL ANCHOR CBS NEWS’ ELECTION NIGHT 2004 COVERAGE
 
Rather Will be Joined by CBS News Correspondents in New York, Washington, D.C.,
And Battleground States, Including Bob Schieffer, Ed Bradley, Lesley Stahl,
John Roberts, Bill Plante, Jim Axelrod, Byron Pitts and Mika Brzezinski
 
CBSNews.com Will Provide Live Results, Updated Every 90 Seconds, On Presidential,
Congressional and Gubernatorial Races Down to the County Level
 
            Dan Rather, who has covered every major election since 1964, will anchor CBS News’ comprehensive coverage of Election Night 2004 and will be joined by a group of some of the most experienced political reporters in broadcast journalism, as well as correspondents and reporters in key battleground states.  Reporting live on Election Night ’04, Tuesday, Nov. 2 (7:00 PM-2:00 AM, ET), will be Bob Schieffer, Ed Bradley, Lesley Stahl, John Roberts, Bill Plante, Jim Axelrod, Byron Pitts and Mika Brzezinski, among others.  CBS News coverage will continue beyond that time if events warrant.
 
            In addition, CBS News' Campaign 2004 website (www.cbsnews.com) will provide the fastest, most reliable, most user-friendly election results available anywhere.  Live results, updated every 90 seconds, for the Presidential, Congressional and gubernatorial races will be available down to the county level.  CBSNews.com users will see projections as soon as they’re made by the Network’s Decision Desk.  The same complete, detailed national and state exit poll data used by CBS News producers and correspondents will be available on CBSNews.com as soon as the polls are closed.  To provide context to the data, experts from the CBS News Election Unit will update clear, user-friendly stories on voter trends and behavior throughout the evening.  At the end of the night, CBSNews.com will feature opinion and analysis commentary from our partners from across the entire political spectrum.  CBSNews.com will also Webcast all of the key victory celebrations and concession speeches. 
 
            Several important operational and editorial changes will be in place at CBS News this election night, as they were for the 2002 midterm elections:  the Decision Desk will be located in the Election Night studio to facilitate constant contact among the reporters, producers and analysts, and a senior-level CBS News executive, Linda Mason, will oversee the desk’s activity; CBS News Correspondent Mika Brzezinski will report live from the Decision Desk to explain to viewers how CBS News is making its projections; more precise language will be used to describe some races if CBS News feels it cannot make a call, including “too close to estimate” or “not enough votes to estimate,” among others; even more sources will be checked for vote tallies; reporters will be positioned on the ground in closely contested states to provide further information to the Decision Desk; and no estimates will be made until after the scheduled poll closing times in each state.
 
            Rather will anchor the CBS News coverage, which will include  all Presidential, Senate and key House of Representatives election results, as well as votes on key referenda.  With sophisticated, state-of-the-art technology developed for CBS News, Rather will have massive amounts of quantitative data literally at his fingertips:  by touching a computer screen, he will have access to up-to-the-minute vote counts in a variety of categories instantly.  A large monitor will simultaneously display the information to viewers.
 
            Other members of CBS News’ coverage team and their “beats” for the evening are:
 
· Bob Schieffer, CBS News’ chief Washington correspondent and anchor of FACE THE NATION, now celebrating its 50th anniversary, will join Rather in New York, providing overall analysis of the campaign, the candidates and the results.  Schieffer has covered Washington for 35 years, is one of the few broadcast or print journalists to have covered all four major beats there -- the White House, the Pentagon, the State Department and Capitol Hill – and tonight (13) will moderate the third and final Presidential debate.
 
· 60 MINUTES Correspondent Ed Bradley will provide analysis of how and why people voted the way they did.  Bradley has covered every election night for CBS News since 1976.
 
· 60 MINUTES Correspondent Lesley Stahl will cover the Senate and House of Representative races.  She has continued to report many political stories in her tenure at 60 MINUTES, following 10 years as White House correspondent and eight as anchor of FACE THE NATION.
 
· Chief White House Correspondent John Roberts will provide live coverage and analysis of the national exit polls, using new technology to display vote counting and demographic data.  Roberts has covered the White House since 1999.
 
· Bill Plante will cover the Bush/Cheney campaign from its Election Night headquarters.  Plante has been a CBS News White House correspondent since 1993.
 
· CBS News Correspondents Byron Pitts and Jim Axelrod, who have been covering the Kerry/Edwards campaign, will report live from Kerry/Edwards headquarters and a key battleground state.
 
· CBS News Correspondent Mika Brzezinski will serve as the Decision Desk correspondent, reporting on how winner estimates are made and how exit poll data is gathered and utilized.  She will also be watching for trouble spots in the vote counting and explaining why winners cannot be estimated in very close races.
 
            Additional CBS News correspondents and reporters will be positioned in key battleground states, including Florida, Ohio, Pennsylvania and others.
 
            Al Ortiz is Executive Producer and Director, Special Events, CBS News.  Kathy Sciere is Senior Editor, Campaign ’04, CBS News.  Marcy McGinnis is Senior Vice President, News Coverage, CBS News.
 
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Press Contacts: Sandy Genelius
                        Leigh Farris