Fox News anchors reportedly instructed not to call Biden president-elect, even if the network projects his win

Fox News anchors are reportedly being told not to refer to former Vice President Joe Biden as the president-elect, even if the network projects that he has been elected president.

The network has told anchors to "stay away" from referring to Biden using that term should Fox News call the race in his favor, telling them to instead use language like saying Biden has "enough electoral votes to win the presidency," CNN reports. One memo from Fox tells anchors to emphasize the legal efforts from President Trump's campaign in key states, saying, "We will report both sides until there is further guidance."

The CNN report says that it's possible this instruction could change but notes that the network referred to President Trump as the president-elect of the United States the day after the 2016 presidential election.

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

No major news networks have called the presidential race yet, but were Fox News to project Biden as the winner in Pennsylvania, it would also be projecting him as the winner of the race overall. The network was previously the first to project Biden as the winner in Arizona, but as of Friday morning, other news networks still say that race is too close to call. Trump was reportedly so upset by Fox's Arizona projection that he called up Fox owner Rupert Murdoch to complain.

Following CNN's reporting about Fox's memos advising against calling Biden the president elect, CNN's Jake Tapper on Friday called on Fox reporters to ignore the "crazy instruction" and said that those who follow it "might as well hand in your press credential at the same time because you can't be taken seriously as a journalist." Despite the reported instruction, though, Fox News' Chris Wallace on Friday morning said that by this Sunday, "We may be talking about Biden as the president-elect." Brendan Morrow

Update: A Fox News spokesperson on Friday denied that there have been any "network wide memos or editorial guidance" from the network on the subject.