Where To Get The Best Election Coverage

I'm guessing if you're reading this now, near the peak of election coverage, you are sitting at home, with your laptop on your lap, watching some coverage.

If you just settled in and went straight to this blog, then you are in luck my friend. Between myself and this random graduate student I met at the Donkey cafe, I think I know where you need to go to get the best information.

I think election coverage begins and ends with CNN at this point. My assignment for the Athens News is to cover the election on campus, which has led me to at least peak into four different locations where people are congregated and watching election coverage.

All are tuned into CNN.

Tonya Woodbridge, a graduate student at Ohio University studying education, is parked inside of Donkey armed with a laptop and continuing supply of coffee.

Although Tonya is an absolute Obama supporter, sporting her white t-shirt with the Obama campaign symbol, she is the kind of cynical thinker that I could talk to .

Tonya will not rest until they call the necessary 270 electoral votes and she is positive they are correct.

"I already was tricked once," she told me referring to the 2000 Presidential Campaign. "I went to bed then thinking one guy was going to be president and woke up to find out it was the other guy. I'm not going to let that happen again."

Tonya said she will wait until California's results come in, which probably won't happen for another three hours because the polls there will not close until 11 p.m.

Okay, I'll get back on topic now. From what I have been watching and hearing about the coverage, MSNBC seems to be the most trigger happy. They called Ohio (in favor of Obama) at least fifteen minutes before CNN.

So CNN is probably the best choice for watching TV, unless you are like me and would rather watch Indecision 2008 on Comedy Central. Check out comedian Patton Oswald's live blog from the Indecision 2008 Web site. It's complete bull shit that Comedy Central isn't streaming the coverage over the Web, giving us library patrons a chance to watch.

MSNBC has the best interactive map, in both mine and Tonya's opinions. Here's a look at it:



The wild card in all of this election coverage, in terms of Web production, would have to be Fox News. With an extreme Obama lead from the other two networks (CNN and MSNBC), Fox is taking the ultra conservative, gun shy approach when calling states.

Now their interactive map isn't working for me, but when it was, it may have been the most interesting of the three stations' interactive maps because it is the most different. As I type this, Fox News is calling Ohio for Obama, a mere 40 minutes behind CNN.

So this looks to be in the books, if everyone has reported results accurately. It interests me that the popular vote is so close, 51-48 Obama, but I'm sure that'll change by the end of the night if the stations have been accurately calling state victories. I'll post later tonight with a wrap up of the winner and some photos.