By Nick Buglione
While I¹m only really obligated to rectify the mistake by running a small correction, I feel it begs a little more explanation. The East Meadow Herald goes to press every Tuesday. Each Election Day, which always falls on a Tuesday, we hold the front page until well after the polls close so we can get the final numbers in, as well as a few quotes from the winners. It¹s not an easy thing to pull off, as any newspaperman can attest. It usually requires a little prognostication on my part. Early Tuesday I write a short story on basically what I think will happen. Then some of the other reporters and I go out to Republican and Democratic headquarters that night to find out exactly what does happen.
I call in the quotes to the editors in the office, who also monitor the results closely online. It's up to them to make the necessary adjustments to my story, but I neglected to remind them to double check my last paragraph. While I think I should be praised for accurately predicting the outcomes of six of the seven races mentioned in my article, something tells me I will undoubtedly be remembered for the one I got wrong.
But it wasn¹t all my fault, honest. Anyone who was at Republican headquarters, and there were a few East Meadow residents there, knows that the numbers on the board had Dillon slightly ahead the whole night. If only there was a damn television in the room, other than the tiny ones the t.v. crews brought for their own viewing, I would have known Dillon lost.
In the three years I've covered the Republicans on Election Night, there has never been a television in the room. I guess the party bosses like to control the information that comes in, allowing them to funnel out any of the bad news.
Looking back, there were tell-tale signs that should have clued me in to the fact that Rice won. For starters, the ceremonial, jovial Republican victory lineup didn¹t take place. After every Election Night, Nassau County Republican Party Chairman Joe Mondello takes the stage with the rest of the ticket and essentially announces why Republicans rule and Democrats suck. But that didn¹t happen. Obviously someone didn't feel like celebrating.
What¹s more, there were many people buzzing around the room looking for up-to-the-minute numbers on the Dillon-Rice race, which should have been a clear indicator that something was up.
Maybe a sharper reporter would have picked up on it, but it was late, I was tired, and I wanted the very last Election Day that I would likely ever cover to be over. Logging on to the Internet when I got home around 1:30 a.m., I learned that Rice had won.
³Oh wow,² I thought at first.
³Oh no,² I thought next, remembering that very last line of my story, and how I neglected to ask the editors to double check it when the night was over. By that time the paper hadn¹t only been put to bed, it was on its fourth dream.
I guess I know how the editors of the Chicago Daily Tribune felt when they awoke on Wednesday, Nov. 3, 1948 to find that Thomas Dewey hadn't won the presidential election over Harry Truman, as their paper's lead headline screamed out that morning. Actually, those guys had it much worse. There was no chance anyone was missing that mistake. At least mine was buried in the last line a region few readers ever reach, even as much as we journalists like to believe that people read our articles word-for-word.
So, to Kathleen Rice, I say congratulations. To Denis Dillon, sorry I got your hopes up.
Comments about this column? NBuglione@liherald.com or (516) 569-4000 ext. 236.
