The New York Times rather nonchalantly admitted that the media is taking direction from the Kerry campaign. If you stayed up late on election night waiting for returns, you may want to take note of this. Apparently a major reason the election was "too close to call", is because the Kerry campaign said so.

The critical moment came at 12:41 a.m. Wednesday, when, shortly after Florida had been painted red for Mr. Bush, Fox News declared that Ohio - and, very likely, the presidency - was in Republican hands.

Howard Wolfson, a strategist, burst into the "boiler room" in Washington where the brain trust was huddled and said, "we have 30 seconds" to stop the other networks from following suit.

The campaign's pollster, Mark Mellman, and the renowned organizer Michael Whouley quickly dialed ABC, CBS, CNN and NBC - and all but the last refrained from calling the race through the night.

Several states like Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Minnesota were called for Kerry with much narrower margins than Ohio. And of course it left NBC and Fox News with the predicament of not calling Nevada until Kerry conceded the election.