They had spent more than $1-million to have an independent body analyze the ballots that were cast but not officially counted in Florida, in the seesaw battle that saw George W. Bush squeak past Al Gore and win the presidency. The participants say that, given the dramatic shift in priorities since Sept. 11, they have neither the staff nor the space to pursue a stale-dated story. Come again? The issue is who would have won the U.S. election if the choices of 180,000 voters had been respected; the story has major implications for American democracy and the U.S. Supreme Court's intervention in the vote. Even with a war to cover, that's a tale that needs to be told. It is hard not to see this as further subordination of news judgment to the desire not to rock the government's boat at a perilous time. Once again, journalistic independence is the loser', schrijft The Globe and Mail.

The Telegraph schrijft: 'David Podvin, an investigative journalist who runs an independent web page, Make Them Accountable, said he had been tipped off that the consortium was covering up the results. He refused to disclose his source other than to describe him as a former media executive whom he knew "as an accurate conduit of information" and who claimed that the consortium "is deliberately hiding the results of its recount because Gore was the indisputable winner". He also claims that a New York Times journalist who was involved in the recount project had told "a former companion" that the Gore victory margin was big enough to create "major trouble for the Bush presidency if this ever gets out". He believes that the inspection, carried out over months by a team from NORC, proves that Mr Gore won Florida and, therefore, the election'.