Get Ready For Election Day News Coverage

Too Much Politics Can Make Anyone Ill

For the last two years – it seems like an eternity – our news shows have been filled with election talk. It started even before the primaries, but it went into high gear as the primaries progressed, and has continued to escalate to the degree that one almost can’t escape it. Even for news and politics junkies like me, I think I’ve reached the limit.

But wait, there’s more. Election Day. It all leads up to this, and many of the networks are touting full day coverage, either on their main broadcast channels, or their cable equivalents. I think NBC Universal may have the most chance to grab viewers, with coverage on NBC, MSNBC, and probably even some coverage on CNBC. Usually on election night I find myself flipping channels, desperate to find something non-political to watch. This year, though, I think I will probably remain glued to the television, especially after the polls close here in the Eastern Time zone. My network of choice – NBC. They always seem to have the best coverage across the country, and I like their on-air people like Brian Williams. The fact that Tim Russert had passed away makes no difference to me as I wasn’t all that taken by his political analysis anyway. His political replacement, Chuck Todd, seems to do just fine. In fact, Chuck seems to have more easily embraced the new technology available for graphics, and I think this helps him explain things a little more clearly than Russert.
But, even I have limits with political coverage and unless there is some big surprise coming when the results come in, I’m content to go to bed like normal and wake up and find out who will be the new Big Man on the White House campus.

And speaking of political coverage, for the first time in a long time, I watched the Fox News (AKA “Faux) “Cost of Freedom” two-hour block of business shows on Saturday. I was appalled at their lame attempts to paint the Democrats, and Barack Obama, in the worst light possible. They should be ashamed of themselves. When they refer to themselves as fair and balanced, they’re kidding, right? Come to think of it, I haven’t heard the fair and balanced tag line from them in a while; maybe they dropped it because the FCC would go after them for false or fraudulent advertising? If the apparent shift in political power in the presidency and the Congress takes places as projected and the country is in fact leaning democratic, this may begin to put a few nails in the Fox coffin. We can only hope, because their kind of political coverage – or their “news” coverage - is simply poison.


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