Marty Plissner, a longtime political director for CBS News who helped expand the role of television in covering elections, died on Thursday in Washington. He was 87. …
As network political coverage became more prevalent and more competitive, it was sometimes criticized for being too focused on the horse-race aspect of campaigns. Mr. Plissner rejected those criticisms; the first thing voters wanted to know, he said, was who was ahead. He also defended television’s increasing use of exit polls — surveys taken after people vote but before polls in many parts of the country may have closed — to project winners. CONT.
William Yardley, New York Times