FOX News anchor Chris Wallace discussed the recent election, bias in the media and more during a question-and-answer session Monday, Nov. 8. Earlier in the day, a new scholarship on the Elon campus was announced in honor of Wallace's stepfather, former CBS News President Bill Leonard. Details...
Wallace, who became anchor of “FOX News Sunday with Chris Wallace” last year, discussed the failure of exit polls to predict the outcome in last week’s presidential election.
“We went into Election Day feeling quite confident,” Wallace said of the new exit polling system implemented by the major networks for this year’s election. “As it turns out, the polls were wrong. We’ve got a big problem, and there’s some thought that we may get out of the exit polling business altogether” in future elections, Wallace said.
He also dismissed the idea that media outlets intentionally broadcast inaccurate exit polling data to skew election results.
“I think sometimes people like to read conspiracy theories into sheer incompetence,” Wallace said. “The fact is, the networks just got it wrong.”
Wallace, who has won every major broadcast award for his reporting, including three Emmy Awards, said the media does all it can to be objective. He admitted, however, that “objectivity is very hard to (achieve) under the best of circumstances. There’s so much information and misinformation out there that it’s tougher to weed your way through it.”
Wallace visited campus with his mother, Kappy Leonard, and Larry and Dee D’Angelo, former chairs of the Elon Parents Council who are members-elect of the Board of Visitors. The D’Angelos established The D’Angelo Family Scholarship in honor of the late Bill Leonard, Chris Wallace’s stepfather and former president of CBS News for many years. Matt Belanger, a senior from York, Pa., is the first recipient of the scholarship, which will be awarded each year to a broadcast communications major in the School of Communications.
“This is a very wonderful day,” Belanger said as he thanked the D’Angelos during a ceremony to announce the scholarship. “This helps my family allow me to be here. You have given Elon something that will continue to give, and this says that you believe in me, even though I’ve never met you.”
Pictured below are Larry D’Angelo; Kappy Leonard; Matt Belanger; Dee D’Angelo; and Chris Wallace.
