If there is one overarching theme of television news organizations' best plans for covering Election Night 2024, it is “transparency.”

Given what happened four years ago, all broadcasters seem to be thinking about how best to show not just the numbers, but how they came about, what they really mean and why they matter.

In a world where a single call from a television network can throw a campaign into chaos, everyone involved seems to understand how high the stakes are.

The early Arizona call from Fox News and the Associated Press in 2020 is still prevalent in newsrooms. Of course, both parties ultimately stuck to their demand and were vindicated in the end, but according to executives and on-air talent from several television networks spoken to The Hollywood Reporterthe lessons of this call are still being felt.

For example, Chris Stirewalt was part of the decision-making team that called Arizona for Fox News (the team is led by veteran consultant Arnon Mishkin). Stirewalt was fired from Fox in 2021 but now works at Nexstar-owned cable news channel NewsNation, where he will be an on-air analyst.

“There was a kind Wizard of Oz Component that there were magical beings in another room, in another place, doing this work of predicting the outcome of a presidential election,” Stirewalt says. “I don’t think that works in our fragmented and atomized media world, where there are no longer any giants ruling the earth. I think you have to show people what you’re doing and I think you have to be transparent about what’s going on.”

When viewers tune in tonight, pulling back the metaphorical curtain will likely happen in two different ways: by talking to the data scientists involved, and by using technology (and good old-fashioned on-air storytelling skills) to shed some light on the data to make it more understandable.

When it comes to technology, every network has a gimmick or two (Fox News, for example, has augmented reality graphics, while NBC News has a CGI version of Rockefeller Center behind the anchors that glows red and blue), but there are also new table inserts in the form of touchscreen data analysis tools. The “Magic Wall,” which CNN launched in 2008, has become essential, with every network having one and a data-driven reporter or anchor on hand to break down the numbers.

John King will return to CNN, as will Bill Hemmer at Fox and Tom Llamas at NBC. On MSNBC, Steve Kornacki will hold court, and he will also have a “Kornacki camera” in the form of a GoPro with a suction cup at his desk so Peacock users can watch him throughout the night.

“With Steve Kornacki there is never an unnecessary live recording,” he says Meet the press Moderator Kristen Welker. “Not an unnecessary word ever comes out of his mouth. When he gives information to our viewers, it's because he thinks it's extremely important and highlights these key issues that we're talking about in this election, whether it's the gender gap, whether it's the right title/wrong one Title number is about whether it is How do voters think about these critical issues that, quite frankly, will determine who wins this election? Economics, immigration, reproductive rights, climate change, to name a few.

“We like to go into detail with Steve Kornacki, and he makes it informative and I think accessible, too, and that's such a priority for us that we never want to leave people out of the conversation that we're having,” she adds.

At Fox, Hemmer's “Bill-board” will do the same, as will his augmented reality graphics.

“One of my new favorite toys from Bill Hemmer is the one that shows you North Carolina, for example, and shows you how blue it was in the last four elections, for example, and how twice it turned red for Trump just over the line. The same is true in Arizona,” said Fox News host Martha MacCallum. “If you look at how small some of these changes are, Wisconsin was decided by a handful, a few thousand votes in the last election. I think this really shows people what a difficult task it is to get from one side to the other in some of these states to win them.”

“There are so many things to consider these days,” adds her Fox News co-host Bret Baier. “We want to make sure they understand what the data is in different ways that, as Bill says with augmented reality, are just a little more interesting to look at.”

While the broadcasters concentrate fully on their TV productions, the focus is also on data-centric content outside of the TV lens. CNN, for example, has a version of its Magic Wall in the CNN app that allows users to play with it themselves.

And NBC News has a flood of explainer and additional content across various social and video channels.

“Steve Kornacki makes a lot of statements on TikTok, we have ballots that are immediately shared on social media,” said NBC News editorial director Rebecca Blumenstein. “We know people are uncertain about what information to trust right now, but we strive to be a trusted choice on whatever platform people choose to consume news.”

Perhaps most significantly, networks are increasingly leaning toward highlighting the people making the actual calls and reaching out to them directly with questions or clarifications.

At Fox News, Baier says they're willing to bring in Mishkin or other decision makers to explain why they're making a call… or why not.

“Especially when it's tight and it's very late at night and we're waiting on some states, we think about lifting the curtain and taking it to the people who are looking at the data, putting it on them and saying, ' 'Why can't we make this call specifically? And then we have that person say to Bill, 'Go to such and such county,' and then we can see it visually when the person at the data decision desk says, 'Here we are, we're stuck here,'” Baier says. “I think that's another thing we've learned over time: the more we show, the more transparent we are. I think the better it is for the viewer.”

At NewsNation, meanwhile, the station is foregoing its forecasts entirely and outsourcing them to the Decision Desk headquarters, with the station having cameras and reporters in the room at its Georgetown location. Stirewalt argues that outsourcing the call makes the news organization more independent because it prevents lobbying or pressure from campaigns, as Fox News saw in 2020 when the Trump camp made a concerted effort to withdraw the Arizona call.

“I think this is better. I think it's better because if you want to make sure that commercial, mercenary or partisan sentiments don't influence how races are called, it helps if you just keep it clean and separate,” he says. “They’re over there. They do their thing. We can talk to them. We can watch them. We can ask them questions, we can do all that, but they're going to do what they're going to do and we're going to report on it and we're going to try to provide context and explanations.”

But all the data and transparency in the world won't mean much if viewers don't buy it.

That's the $64,000 question facing news organizations this year. Consumers are protected in a fragmented media environment, a true choose-your-own-adventure world with reassuring data at their fingertips.

Half the country will be on the losing side in Tuesday's election. Will transparency reassure them? Or will it drive them further to data providers that offer security and a worldview that aligns with their own?