This was my first election that I was able to vote and it was pretty exciting to know that I was able to be a direct part of this historic election. I chose to watch both media coverage of the election on FOX News and MSNBC. It was interesting listen to both the liberal side and conservative take on this election. I didn’t want to just stay on one channel and receive only one side of the story.
Watching FOX News, I found it different than MSNBC. I think each channel, even though one is clearly republican and one is democratic, should not be totally one sided and should give the news without too much biased. I don’t think the channels were too biased on the election but there was definitely some making it difficult to figure out what was the truth or what was just blatant opinion. I did like, however, when MSNBC interviewed a Republican Strategist and how FOX interviewed a Democratic Strategist, it helped give a mixture of both sides from each station. I also noticed was how each news program represented the gradual results coming in. I enjoyed watching MSNBC because of how they showed different maps of each state and overall how they had the TV screen set up, it was just easier for me to read and see who was winning what state and how close states were. I also saw a brief clip of the US map with the different states, either colored red or blue, on an actual ice rink, which I thought was pretty cool and never saw anything like that before.
MSNBC continuously told what states voted which way during the 2000 and 2004 election. This made me understand it easier because I don’t know what states are republican or democratic, so comparing these 2008 results with previous elections was interesting and easier to understand why a state voted Obama or McCain.
Every channel I put on, whether MSNBC, FOX, a local channel, etc, the election and results were up. Once Obama won Ohio, many of the stations basically said he won the election- I think the media gets ahead of its self sometimes by saying things like this. Yes, winning Ohio and Pennsylvania was huge for the Obama campaign, but too many stations were calling the election before it was close to over.
After hearing that Obama won the election I put on every channel to see each reaction. Some were filled with balloons and pure excitement while others showed rooms clearing out since their candidate did not win. It was an exciting election to watch, in my opinion. I have never watched so much of the media coverage and I overall enjoyed it. But I don’t think one can watch too much of it, I know I got bored after a while when no results were coming in but I felt the need to keep watching because maybe any second something big would happen. I think the whole hype and it almost acting like a game with the different electoral votes acting as “points” draws a lot of the American public being drawn to watch it even when though don’t really want to.
I was switching through the channels and came across a show, Privileged, with something that caught my eye. This show is about two bratty rich girls, nothing to do with the election, but the characters on the show all had “I Voted” stickers. It was patriotic to me that they did this and I think it brings more people, especially the younger public who watches this show, to realize that voting is so important and everyone who is able should.
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