Election Day '08

During the election coverage, I was mostly getting my news feeds from the internet, since I still had two classes yesterday and wasn't near my TV. It's definitely interesting to see the different "biases", if you will, from the different mainstream news sites.

CNN definitely focused more on Obama's campaign, whereas Fox News had significantly more McCain coverage. There were a couple of things that I saw on Fox News that grabbed my attention; I'm not sure if it was on CNN and MSNBC and those as well, but when it was being covered I was watching Fox News. There was an anchor reporting from a voting place that was being guarded by a "Black Panther" security guard, as the reporter called him, who they believed might have been intimidating voters. Apparently one of them had a nightstick that he was walking around with, but he had since left after the report was being shown. They got into a pretty heated argument on the air because the guard didn't think the reporter had the right to be showing him, when in fact, he did, and the reporter was trying to figure out what purpose the "Black Panther" had at a voting station. I thought it was pretty interesting to see how, with all the drive this election to get people to vote, there was also an opposing force trying to intimidate them into not voting.

Another interesting bit that I saw was also on Fox News, and it occured after Obama was announced as the winner. They were talking to Ralph Nader about his opinion of Obama being our next president. There was definitely a lot of doubt in Nader's statement, and at one point he said something roughly like "I wonder if he will be like Uncle Sam instead of Uncle Tom". At that point the anchor got pretty upset with Nader and basically stopped the discussion. The anchors on the show discussed what he said and basically concluded that Nader's career was over after that statement. I personally didn't think it was quite that big of a deal, but it was definitely a little sad to see Nader, someone who had contributed a lot to the nation back in the day, that bitter and, frankly, out of touch.

Here's the Nader video:



I was also reading the Huffington Post and it reminded me of something i'd see on CNN. All Obama. And political affiliations aside, I was a little disappointed as to how many "Probama" articles there were. Not only on the Huffington Post, but also just a general sentiment that floated around during the election was that electing Obama would be more important as a victory in breaking racial barriers, rather than what he actually will do for the country. And I think that's hogwash. I think that the racial card, if you will, further emphasized the "change" he'll bring to the country, and I think that definitely helped him in the election. But I just don't think it's significant in the grand scheme of things.

There was one alternative site that I mentioned earlier, Fact Check, that had some interesting notes on Obama's promises come election night. You can read about it here.
It basically reviews his promises regarding health care and the economy. Some of the other articles on there are pretty provocative, and I found myself going back there pre-election. One of the things I thought was most interesting were the result projections websites, like 270 to win, were spot on in their expectations. Although I don't really think the results in this election surprised anyone. It'll definitely be a good resource for future elections though.

Most of the people I talked to got their information, like me, off the internet. The only people I found that actually got most of their coverage off the TV were my parents. I'm not sure if it was just a convenience thing, or if TV coverage is just becoming a thing of the past.