The President for The Next 4 Years Will Be....

I learned many new things about the nail bitting 2000 election between Al Gore and George W Bush. The Florida Supreme Court was the group chosen to decide the case of who will receive their electoral votes for the election. The media jumped on this asking to broadcast and televise the argument. However, the court denied the media access to the session because studies have proven that the cameras would affect the content and emphasis on questions of the lawyers.
I believe that this decision by the Florida Supreme Court made it look as if they were trying to hide something. When the media gave this news out to the public, it affected views of the public on this issue. Most likely, the media wasn't happy about the Court's decision to deny media access, so their broadcast of the info was most likely bias making the Florida Supreme Court the bad guys.
In this election, Gore was first to be announced winner of Florida. However, his triumph was for a  minuscule time period. Later that day Florida went back to being undecided.
I know the media was all over the news of Gore winning Florida for that short-lived moment. Media probably made this a huge deal and were shouting it from the roof tops. When they had to announce the false alarm,  it was probably heart-breaking to some and others might have not checked the news after hearing that Gore won because of there time. This little mishap probably wouldnt have been as big of a deal if the media werent to announce it so urgently.
Also, I thought it was interesting to find out that in the 2000 election, Florida had only 25 electoral votes, instead of today's 29 electoral votes. Florida had 27 electoral votes in the 2008 election. It gained 2 in the 2010 census giving them 29 in the 2012 election.
Questions:
How long did it actually take to have a clear winner in this election?
Where candidates still campaigning during this period?
How come there had to be a recount if there was a winner in the original vote?