I wouldn't call myself a political junkie, though I guess I do get that way every four years. The massive coverage the election gets from the news channels is both way overdone and endlessly fascinating.
Last night I watched the coverage of Super Tuesday. My plan was to try to stick to one station, since they'd have the results eventually, but my remote trigger finger got itchy and I was surfing all night. Here are a few random thoughts I jotted down.
1. I couldn't watch CNN, at least not all night.. Those giant screens and all those graphics. At one point Wolf Blitzer was standing next to a massive lineup of 24 different pie charts, and I think he wanted to just throw his notes down and walk down the street to the nearest bar. John King was doing all these fancy things with his fingers on a screen, and it was hard to follow and kind of glitchy. It was the world's most insane PowerPoint presentation.
2. Chris Matthews - gah! (Tim Russert - semi-gah!). Matthews was easily the most annoying person on TV last night (and that includes Randy Jackson on American Idol). He loves to hear himself talk. I think he stays in the studio long after everyone else has gone home and just sits there and talks and records it so he can go home and watch himself over and over again. And what's with that ALF-ish "HA!" that he belches at least once an hour, usually off-camera? God.
3. CBS actually had some of the best coverage last night. I think there's something to be said about just having a two hour show to give the results and analysis instead of the all day coverage you get on CNN, MSNBC, and Fox News. Katie Couric was loose, informative, funny (at one point making a joke about Jeff Greenfield's cell phone going off), had a great team and one of the best screens of the night, just a monitor in front of her that the network shot from above. She joked that she was practicing her ATM skills.
4. Worst Dressed of the Night: Brit Hume over on Fox. Come on, a black pin-striped suit, striped shirt, polka-dot tie, and a white collar?
5. CSPAN's coverage was low-key, like a local cable station that had a larger budget than usual. I happened to catch a viewer who called in from Missouri (supposedly) who actually said live on the air that he voted for Huckabee, though he was going to vote for Obama until Obama came to Missouri and "stole his TV set." He then hung up and the anchor looked confused.
6. I have a feeling that CNN weatherman Chad Myers had no idea he was going to work as much as he did last night.
7. "Kansas Caucus" is really hard to say.
8.Tucker Carlson looks weird in a regular tie.
9. I still can't get used to Chip Reid on CBS.
10. Most Boring of the Night: Bill Schneider and Soledad O'Brien on CNN. Schneider always seems shocked by every vote he analyzes, and O'Brien looks like she got the short straw when they picked what each person was going to do.
11. Campbell Brown needs a haircut badly.
12. Keith Olbermann was quite good. Too bad he didn't work alone last night.
13. Shiniest Foreheads of the Night: Karl Rove and Bill Kristol over on Fox News.
15. When Mitt Romney told his supporters that he was going to keep fighting, his wife had an expression on her face that said "why am I here?"
16. Actual quote from Wolf Blitzer: "a good thing to have on your lap is a laptop."
17. What's with all the weird shots of people sitting down or walking around behind the anchors? The Fox News anchors seemed to be reporting results from some backstage party, and over on CNN they had two different analyst desks. When Blitzer or Anderson Cooper talked to the team in front, you could see the other team in back just sitting there, waiting to be talked to, or looking at their Blackberrys. At one point, you could see Paul Begala and Bill Bennett getting make-up applied by a CNN staffer. No joke.
18. Diane Sawyer was once a newswoman. It seems like such a long time ago.
19. Best Graphics/Info: CBS and MSNBC.
20. People like me who really suck at math must be masochists for watching eight hours of this stuff.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
2-06-2008 @ 12:53PM
MacGuffin said...
I thought MSNBC had the best coverage last night and has covered this race really well with its special Tuesdays.
I actually like Chris Matthews, although you're right, Bob, he can be a little gregarious. He seems to be more and more radicalized against Bush, which is not necessarily a bad thing.
Overall MSNBC has a deep bench of great talent. Particularly Chuck Todd, David Gregory, Keith Olbermann, Andrea Mitchell and Tim Russert.
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2-06-2008 @ 12:54PM
Kemp said...
Actually, Wolf's best comment last night was when, in discussing Romney's win in Utah, he said that there are quite a few Mormons in Utah...
That's some mighty fun reporting there Wolf...
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2-06-2008 @ 12:59PM
Rick B said...
I have to chime in on Fox News' coverage. Ok, its not an "ALERT" when the damn thing is going on for 4 hours! The screen literally read ALERT the WHOLE night. Give it a rest with the crazy a** graphics FOX NEWS!
I hear you two about all the crazy people walking around in the background too. It was just odd...
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2-06-2008 @ 1:03PM
Richie said...
My strategy was just to switch between the major news channels. Overall, I liked MSNBC the most, because Keith Olbermann is always good, but good lord, I hate Chris Matthews.
CNN was just overwhelming - Wolf was awkward and they had those stupid touchscreen charts everywhere.
FOX was, well, FOX. Their graphics seemed way too "OMG ITS THE PRIMARIES OMG OMG OMG LOOK HERE" for me. Plus, it was FOX.
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2-06-2008 @ 1:10PM
David said...
Agree on all points, particularly the first one. How many screens do we need? And all that walking around the room to different people and desks was completely over the top. I had high hopes for ABC, but overall their coverage was pretty weak.
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2-06-2008 @ 1:23PM
Scott said...
I watched 4.5 hours of MSNBC, flipping around a little on the commercials (mostly to "Family Guy" on TBS just for a BREAK). Olbermann is a real asset for them, as is the rest of the team there, including Brokaw and Russert in small cameos. Matthews is a little hard to take for multiple hours at a time. Also, their graphics were far less obnoxious than CNN's or the Republican Party Network (aka Fox). CNN doesn't seem to understand that technology for the sake of technology is pointless. MSNBC's semi-transparent virtual screen next to Lester Holt in what Olberman called the "set from the movie TRON" was just high-tech enough, as were the constant on-screen graphics with results (and, thank god, NO TICKER scrolling across the bottom this time!) One other MSNBC complaint--save the music for commercial breaks and official calls and projections! They played their election theme almost constantly last night, including under many of the analysts! I like it, but I don't need it burned into my skull, thanks.
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2-06-2008 @ 1:43PM
Sam said...
I wish MSNBC's "B squad" panel - Eugene Robinson, Norah O'Donnell, Pat Buchanan and Rachel Maddow - got more props. Not just last night, but every time they're all together, they're always interesting, insightful and dare I say it, fun to watch without being blowhards. They're miles better than Williams, Russert, Olbermann and Matthews, IMO.
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2-06-2008 @ 1:45PM
willy the impeached said...
With a name like Bob (=male gender), I was confused about why you would think there was any possibility that you could watch any CNN let alone two hours. But you closed off this this puzzle simply with #20 - you can't do math (i.e. you're mostly a chick anyways).
And just a note, having Olbermann and Matthews discuss what Republicans are thinking is like having the girls from (insert your favorite soap opera here "Bob") discuss football.
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2-06-2008 @ 2:11PM
Richie said...
Ooh, sexist AND ignorant. You must be a hit with the ladies.
2-06-2008 @ 1:56PM
Stacey said...
I actually watched the coverage mostly on PBS and found it to be informative and thankfully without the overload of graphics that tends to give me a headache at times. It is a news outlet that I think gets overlooked sometimes but has excellent coverage.
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2-06-2008 @ 2:57PM
Dave said...
I ignored the talking heads telling me what they want me to think and I read the unbiased results in the morning newspaper.
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2-06-2008 @ 3:29PM
Dawn said...
I actually like Chris Matthews, despite his bloviating and hard-on-the-ears voice. He's very smart. And Keith Olbermann is fantastic. The panel of Joe Scarbourough (almost as bad as Chris Matthews), Pat Buchanan Rachel Medow, etc was lively and interesting. Great coverage on MSNBC. Soledad Obrien is SUCH a bore, and Brit Hume is a pompous ass.
All in all, its great that politics junkies like me can have such a smorgasbord on nights like last night.
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2-06-2008 @ 3:31PM
Brian said...
I kinda enjoyed BBCAmerica's coverage. It was different.
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2-06-2008 @ 3:37PM
jordancda said...
I actually really liked all the techy stuff CNN was throwing out there. I loved the screen...I forget what they are called, but lots of university classrooms are beginning to use those. I thought CNN had the best "look" for their presentation, overall. Panel-wise, I liked Fox News the best. But Brit Hume certainly bores me, though he does have a good way of mediating the conversation and transitioning from feature to feature.
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2-06-2008 @ 4:35PM
Ian said...
Did anyone check out Dan Rather's coverage last night on HDNet? I thought it was pretty darn good, with people who appeared to know what they were talking about. I stress "appeared," because with primaries, you never know.
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2-06-2008 @ 5:11PM
jt said...
Watching ABC News's coverage, I couldn't help but think that the cupboard is bare. They used to have so much news talent, but so many of their heavy hitters have moved on or retired. I miss Peter Jennings.
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2-06-2008 @ 9:08PM
Glenn Thomas said...
I enjoyed Fox News. Yes the graphics were a little overwhelming at first but by far they provided the most relevant and up to date analysis and they looked more prepared than cnn or msnbc
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2-07-2008 @ 12:09AM
Preston said...
They had the night hosts on Fox News Channel do the daytime election coverage on the network. Were they desperate to have all of their hosts do the coverage? But the hours of coverage were understandable because the lead could have changed any minute for each of the candidates. You're talking about 22 states! California's election didn't end until very late at night. But CNN had the best coverage--all those LCD screens and graphics. Perhaps they want to get back their No. 1 spot after Fox has had it for much of the past 6-7 years. MSNBC has gotten better and I believe that ABC, CBS and NBC let the cable networks do the extensive coverage.
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2-08-2008 @ 3:56AM
Will said...
I watched off and on, I'm interested- to a point- and want to be informed and up-to-date, but I really just want the basic facts and not all the extra commentary. I mostly watch CNN, I like all the anchors, Anderson Cooper makes most everything interesting for me. I get a kick out of Tim Russert; it's so obvious that he LIVES for this kind of stuff, politics is an obession to him the way football or NASCAR is to others. There's n way in hell I could remember all the stats as he does, but I do want to have a good amount of info leading into November, because I think it's a duty we all have to make the best possible decision come election time. Having said that, I will also admit that I see no possible way I could be convinced to vote for a Democrat, so maybe it's a moot point.
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