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Election coverage: A boring night with bad graphics
It was a wild night of election coverage, wasn’t it? Or maybe it just seemed that way to me. Punching the remote every few minutes, skipping from network to cable to local to national is a head-spinning proposition at best.
So, consider this a hit-and-miss evaluation. Even if I had a TV with a dozen screens (which, thankfully, I do not), I couldn’t possibly catch everything that happened from 7 p.m. until midnight. But I did my button-punching best …
On the local front, I thought Judy Maggio and Ron Oliveira on CBS’ KEYE served up the most informative coverage. The two anchors have been covering politics in Central Texas for a couple of decades, and that experience showed. They were comfortable on the air and were backed up by smart graphics and solid reporting.
Belo-owned KVUE, with Tyler Sieswerda and Christine Haas, also did a commendable job. KXAN’s staffing woes (several people in front of the camera and behind have left recently) made the coverage seem a bit thin, but anchors Michelle Valles and Robert Hadlock skillfully held down the fort.
KTBC’s Fox 7, however, was a different story, with Mike Warren anchoring solo (no replacement for Linda Stratton has been hired) and looking overwhelmed at times. He was deep-sixed by faulty graphics and technical problems, too. Transitions were bumpy, and, at least when I was watching, the fast-scrolling election results had no party designation by the candidates’ names. Talk about incomplete information!
News 8 Austin also had graphics problems, which is a disaster on election night when many people are tuning in to see results in a quick-and-neat format. You’d think high-tech Time Warner Cable, which runs News 8, would be on the cutting edge with this stuff.
On the national front, former anchor Dan Rather served up a few of his trademark Ratherisms last night, but this time he was on Comedy Central with news spoofer Jon Stewart.
Rather dubbed the fight for the Senate in Virginia “ugly as a hog lagoon after a bachelor party” and assessed Sen. Hillary Clinton’s landslide victory in New York thusly: “She ran away with it like a hobo with a sweet potato pie.” Known for his stiff demeanor as much as his folksy sayings on election night, Rather seemed to be enjoying himself, which was fun to see.
Stewart paired with Stephen Colbert for an hour of satirical silliness at 10 p.m., and it was a welcome relief from the oh-so-cautious (and industrially boring) reports on cable and network news programs. Moments into the hour, Stewart referred to Florida as the state “where Cubans go to live and Jews go to die.” That’s when I stopped flipping and settled in for a good time. It was late, I was tired, I deserved a chuckle or two.
The night started off with a trio of network anchors making their election-night debuts, and excitement was in the air.
“This is going to be fascinating, and it could even be historic,” Charles Gibson chirped in his introduction. When the early projection of Sen. Clinton’s re-election, Gibson channeled Rather when he said, “That had all the surprise of a Doris Day movie.”
ABC, by far the best among the broadcast networks, jumped its prime-time coverage up a half-hour, starting at 8:30 instead of the previously announced 9 p.m.
Determined not to seem either chipper or girly, CBS’s Katie Couric, decked out in a conservative black suit and white blouse, was steady if a tad boring. She seemed most comfortable when paired with former temporary anchor Bob Schieffer. There was no giggling on Couric’s part, but she did seem more uncomfortable and unsure on the air than her counterparts at ABC and NBC.
Speaking of NBC, is it just me or is Brian Williams really enamored of his own voice and vocabulary? He’s not pompous in real life, but on the air he comes off as stentorian and overly grand. At one point he was pontificating about something and transitioned with the word “corollarily,” which might have been fine for a position paper but sounded ridiculous on the air. Talk to us, Brian. Don’t lecture.
With visions of past premature projections dancing in their heads, anchors and prognosticators were remarkably cautious revealing last night’s midterm election results.
Although it was hinted at hours earlier, nobody actually came out and said the Democrats had won control of the U.S. House until right before 10 p.m. Central Time. The only person I heard even speculating that the Democrats would control the U.S. Senate came from Fox News’ Bill Kristol, who said at 11:30 p.m. that it looked like that might happen.
This morning, the Senate is still too close to call, so caution turned out to be the way to go last night.
On cable news, the problem is always sensory overload. On that score, Fox was the least offensive and CNN the most. CNN’s graphics were simply overwhelming — crawls, a creeping red-to-blue gauge, boxed stats on whatever the talking head was talking about and at least a couple other flashing tidbits of information.
Speaking of sensory overload, my remote-control hand is shot and my eyes are exhausted from trying to watch six things on one screen at a time — and switching from screen to screen about every 10 minutes. I’m looking forward to reading a book tonight … no TV for me.
Permalink | Comments (2) | Categories: News coverage
Comments
By politicsjunkie
November 8, 2006 03:47 PM | Link to this
Experience is the most important element in political coverage and once again, Judy and Ron know their stuff. Overwhelmingly the best coverage in Austin.
By austinights
November 8, 2006 12:56 PM | Link to this
Local media coverage of elections was at best weak. I totally agree with your assessment. I thought News8 would be really good, because they are always on, but at one point at 10 p.m. I caught the "panel" and it was pathetic. Three guys pulled around a table that looked like it was from the breakroom. I've never really understood the concept of having a reporter in the "news room." It always appears very confusing and I end up trying to see what's on the TV in the background or watching the person in the background who might be surfing the net while at work. Fortunately, a cool show like THE UNIT was on and that helped the night go by. Thank God for DVD's. CNN was indeed the worst....Anderson Cooper was just salivating and Wolf was...well, Wolf. I don't think it was any real surprise that the Republicans were going to lose big time. I'm more interested in now in what Aaron Sorkin is going to write up in the upcoming episode of Studio 60....yawwn!