Obama Wins! News Networks split between anxiety and joy. Tonight at 11.

The election is finally over. After many months of campaigning by candidates all over the country, incredible amounts of news coverage that could be compared to the whole of the coverage of the “war on Iraq”, and several billion dollars later, we finally have our next president of the United States. The night of the election, tensions were high. A lot was at stake. CNN, in anticipation of this tension, ran a night long ongoing coverage of the debate. Their coverage was all around good, full of constant and seemingly incessant analyzing of the ongoing election process and some rather unnecessary pizzazz with their “hologram” technology. Interestingly enough, after the projection came out that Obama won the state of Ohio, the tone of the analysts changed. They seemed to become a bit more cheerful and optimistic at the announcement.

Before this announcement they emphasized that McCain would definitely have win Ohio in order to have a chance in the election. Before him, there was only one Republican candidate to win without it, and that was Abraham Lincoln. After this news, they started showing projections which indicated that it was very unlikely that McCain was going to win. They even told people they could go to their site to offer their projections of ways it was possible for McCain to win. However, they seemed to know that it was an impossibility from that point on. Yet they could not or would not come right out and say that it was a victory for Obama yet. Still though, their cheerfulness showed through.

Now, I cannot pledge to be able to remember the names of any of the analysts on CNN from election night, I remember Wolf Blitzer was there, and none of the other names really stuck with me. I tried looking up who was on there, but did not have much luck. However, most of them, even the ones that seemed republican or conservative were getting enthusiastic about analyzing the data. It was when the news was announced that McCain was putting in an early withdrawal that everyone in the room really started celebrating. They almost seemed defiant to the typical view that they should have been unbiased in their reporting. If they could jump on their desks and throw chairs around the newsroom they would have. Instead, they showed a dozen live feeds of enthusiastic droves of people celebrating and being happy. They happily and with glee announced the news by raising their tones and adding a happy ring to it. The whole depiction was almost surreal. Like all of the displeasure with Bush simply flowed out of them and seeped into the floors.

I think it is good that they showed this leaning towards Obama in their celebration. The news networks really are biased in how they report, and it has never quite been as clear to me as it has been now. They cannot continue to show unbiased news if they have these leanings and pretend not to have them. I am sure they will continue to pretend they are unbiased, but they, for one night, made those leanings very apparent. Fox news did too with their almost funeral dirge depiction of the Obama victory. They begrudgingly reported the news and then showed the speeches of Obama and McCain. Sadly, I cannot find a video of this clip regardless of much searching. Fox News also showed their bias rather flagrantly. It is good because people need to know these leanings. If they are getting their news, they should know what kinds of biases are put into that news. They should be able to outright know what kind of spin has been put into it so that they can make a better judgment of the information that is being presented to them.

Then I changed the channel to Comedy Central and watched the tail end of their comedy special. They also had an almost surreal atmosphere to their celebration. They brought all the democrats and republicans together on the special and led them out into the open day where the scenery was described by them all as beautiful after all the misery of the Bush years. Everyone was happy, Steven Colbert and Jon Stewart alike. Then they are reminded that Bush is still in office for a few more months and, with a look of disgruntlement, they all walk back inside. The strange part of the video which they pointed out was that it was broad daylight outside, while it should have been nighttime. This indicates that to me that they made the video ahead of time, as if they knew that Obama was going to win. From what I heard from friends, Jon even started his celebrating their victory before complete victory was announced and Colbert was just holding out hope that the slightest miracle might occur and pull McCain up. They had that liberty.

They could do that. The news networks could not. Their biases were clear. Their judgment was immediate and not withdrawn. This is just how the news networks should be doing rather than continuing to play their illusions of having no bias. However, it is tonight that those illusions were at their thinnest, and all one had to do was watch and pay a little attention to their reactions to the news. Then one could easily and simply see them.