And WTF were all those silly walls of data trying to show?

I'll let you know as soon as John Oliver is finished rebooting.

Which is why I watched MSNBC last night.

I_C_Weener: Conservatives...its what we anticipated but at best its control of 1/3 of Congress...we have the brakes, Obama still has the steering wheel and accelerator.

No. The Senate is the brakes. The Republicans have the accelerator. The Democrats have the brakes and the steering wheel.

I'm not a car person. Does this mean our transmission is going to die?

The Tea Partier...this is a repudiation of spending. We will now get balanced budgets and I'm still talking over everyone so you can't say anything...and I've got bad hair.

Balanced budgets? Pffft. Yeah right. As long as there is a "common sense exception" for cuts to defense spending, there will not be a balanced budget.

I_C_Weener: We will now get balanced budgets

I actually hope they managed to force in a balanced budget amendment. One of two things will happen then. One is they will realize their demand to cut taxes and balance the budget is impossible and they have to raise taxes and explain it to the people, or two, they cut so much that people revolt and Obama gets to come in and save the day with a veto and a more sensible solution.

It's win/win.

impaler: I believe the term is "brake stand."

Spinning our wheels, making lots of noise and smoke, and going nowhere?

Sounds about right.

FishyFred: impaler: I believe the term is "brake stand."

Spinning our wheels, making lots of noise and smoke, and going nowhere?

Sounds about right.

Which is exactly what we need right now. Last thing we need is more laws.

Daily Show did a nice spoof of the CNN coverage last night (new window)

CNN has been relying too heavily on gimmicks, graphics and C list anchors for years now. Big media events just make it more obvious.

mr_a: I have to admit that I didn't understand half of the CNN graphics, and I analyze data for a living.


i love how ESPN stole CNN's/Fox News shtick of showing electoral votes and precincts reporting, via some dude playing with a huge farking HD touchscreen.

ESPN's version is showing you some limpdick playing with a touchscreen, but instead of counties/seats, he's drawing little shapes and showing you where the ball / puck goes, or where it was really stupid, was during LeBron's free agency, the cat was moving salaries around. It was like,

"if Ilgauskas leaves *touches screen, drags contract to other side of screen* and Amare goes to New York *drags names across screen* and blah blah blah, then that frees up cap space for LeBron to conceivably go to Chicago blah blah blah but if Carmelo gets traded to Dallas *drags contract* then Denver could blah blah blah...."

brilliant. on my TV, some guy playing wtih a TV.

YO DAWG I HEARD YOU LIKE TV ON YOUR TV SO WE ARE GONNA SHOW A DUDE PLAYING WITH A TV AND PUT IN YOUR TV SO WHEN YOU WATCH TV YOU ARE WATCHING A GUY PLAYING WITH A TV ON YOUR TV BECAUSE WE HEARD YOU LIKE TV SO HERE'S A GUY WATCHING/PLAYING WITH A TV ON YOUR TV SO YOU WATCH A GUY WATCH TV ON YOUR TV SO YOU CAN WATCH TV AND WATCH A GUY PLAYING WITH A TV ON YOUR TV SO YOU GET MORE TV ON YOUR TV.

The only thing better would be a PIP on the guy's tv, on your tv.

/infinite recursion ftw

All_Farked_Up: FishyFred: impaler: I believe the term is "brake stand."

Spinning our wheels, making lots of noise and smoke, and going nowhere?

Sounds about right.

Which is exactly what we need right now. Last thing we need is more laws.

I'm hopeful to see two years of donuts.

I assume too that CNN went back to its innovative hologram reporting methods, because it worked really well in 2008.

"I can't even get behind that because it's so big," Velshi protested at one point

He's obviously not a Farker.

No smoke, Prop 19 went down

someguy945: "I can't even get behind that because it's so big," Velshi protested at one point

He's obviously not a Farker.

*I* don't like you either. You just watch yourself. We're wanted men. I have the death sentence on twelve systems.

The news channels delayed releasing a few by county results that showed Democrats winning until last, building the GOP resurgence narrative.

I watched OR-4 pretty closely, and they only posted the counties showing Robinson winning, and posted the ones showing Defazio winning much later. They did that for the other Oregon districts as well, except the one the Republican took in Eastern Oregon.

Unofficial results were available at 8 for all the counties.

That wall was horrible. First off, it wasn't smooth (it was jumping around several times per second), so it was dizzying to look at. It doesn't help that they refused to keep the camera in one place, so you had the horrible fake 3D resulting in having two layers of jumpiness. Then, you had the green glow on the faces of everyone standing near it, because they didn't light it properly. Then, it sometimes bled through on clothes (this morning you could see straight through someone's shirt collar), because they didn't adjust the transparency properly. Last, but not least, there was so much stuff up there and they showed it so briefly (and kept moving it and the camera) that I have no clue what it said or why it was supposed to be interesting. All I caught was something about "Class of 2008" and "Class of 2006," which was confusing, because it's 2010. I assume it had to do with when incumbents were elected, but I don't know why anyone cares about that. Certainly not why anyone cares enough to make a huge wall about it.

Whatever, I thought CNN had the best coverage last night. I thought their (overly crowded) panel was a nice mix. Plus I still think it's funny that his name is Wolf.

How big do you think the fights are between Jim Carville and his wife?

impaler: The whole thing was designed by graphical design artists, not technical communicators.

The bane of my life is having to create charts for people who have no idea of what a chart is supposed to do.

You want what? A 3D glossy pie chart with drop shadow and transparency?

sboyle1020: How big do you think the fights are between Jim Carville and his wife?

I'm sure the make up sex is out of this world. However, so is Jim himself.

This picture helps explain Blitzer's performance last night.

literaldeluxe: All I caught was something about "Class of 2008" and "Class of 2006," which was confusing, because it's 2010.

Do you really need that explained?

I noticed that CNN's backgrounds were predominantly blue. That made it clear their reporting had a liberal bias.

Did you see last night?
A Democrat implosion.
Beauty incarnate.

FTFA:
Soon after 9 p.m., as Florida's newest senator, Republican Marco Rubio, finished his victory speech, Blitzer weighed in effusively, calling Rubio "a very attractive and impressive young man who's got a huge future." (A personal projection?)

You would think that the Columbia Journalism Review would have a clue as to where to put that period and whether to capitalize a parenthetical statement.

HINT:
"...young man who's got a huge future" (a personal projection?).

There. FTFY. Yes, grammar counts. So does spelling. So does punctuation. Dumb gitz.

//I diodn't check, but how many sentences start with 'and' and 'but?'
///Cuz there's another sign of total idiocy that is in every newspaper every day.

CNN is dead to me. I tried watching last night but after a few minutes decided I could get more accurate info and better pics in a Fark thread.

CygnusDarius: someguy945: "I can't even get behind that because it's so big," Velshi protested at one point

He's obviously not a Farker.

*I* don't like you either. You just watch yourself. We're wanted men. I have the death sentence on twelve systems.

I guess you won't be needing that arm then.

Went to a job interview at CNN once. What a circus of stupidity, couldn't wait to get out of the place.

Diodn't. It's a new way of spelling didn't.

sboyle1020: literaldeluxe: All I caught was something about "Class of 2008" and "Class of 2006," which was confusing, because it's 2010.

Do you really need that explained?

No, I wanted them to explain why it was important, or why it was represented that way. You could only see the names and the "class of" parts for a few seconds at a time, while they were moving, so it obviously wasn't important enough for them to provide any useful graphics or text, and they said so little about it that it obviously wasn't important enough to discuss. So, why did they show it? And why did they make such a mess of showing it if it was supposed to matter?

Great, I got that god damn song in my head now. Now you do too.

sboyle1020:
How big do you think the fights are between Jim Carville and his wife?

I think they both go home and laugh themselves silly that people pay them for their shtick.

So, from what I can tell reading this thread, CNN covered the election like a sporting event?

I love it when issues matter to people. Not that that has jack flying shiat to do with CNN, but I just felt like saying that.

literaldeluxe: sboyle1020: literaldeluxe: All I caught was something about "Class of 2008" and "Class of 2006," which was confusing, because it's 2010.

Do you really need that explained?

No, I wanted them to explain why it was important, or why it was represented that way. You could only see the names and the "class of" parts for a few seconds at a time, while they were moving, so it obviously wasn't important enough for them to provide any useful graphics or text, and they said so little about it that it obviously wasn't important enough to discuss. So, why did they show it? And why did they make such a mess of showing it if it was supposed to matter?

Yea, it was pretty breif. I wasn't really looking at the names closely, just the red and blue.

sboyle1020: literaldeluxe: sboyle1020: literaldeluxe: All I caught was something about "Class of 2008" and "Class of 2006," which was confusing, because it's 2010.

Do you really need that explained?

No, I wanted them to explain why it was important, or why it was represented that way. You could only see the names and the "class of" parts for a few seconds at a time, while they were moving, so it obviously wasn't important enough for them to provide any useful graphics or text, and they said so little about it that it obviously wasn't important enough to discuss. So, why did they show it? And why did they make such a mess of showing it if it was supposed to matter?

Yea, it was pretty breif. I wasn't really looking at the names closely, just the red and blue.

Which is a microcosm of the election process as a whole. People don't vote for candidates, they vote for parties.

dragonchild: So, from what I can tell reading this thread, CNN covered the election like a sporting event?

More like a small-market news team that had 24 hours to prepare for a 12-hour-long broadcast with an unlimited budget. Tons of "high-tech" toys (green screens, HDTVs, touch screens, etc) being used (poorly) for no particular reason, lots of attempts to make something out of nothing, constantly repeating the same one or two things they'd researched/thought up earlier, lots of yelling, and so on.

BBC was not only free to stream online, and 100% commercial free, but it was very clean and professional reporting.

I really don't understand why anyone would have been watching CNN or MSNBC or whatever. You get a crap ton of commercials, herp derp biased commentators, and you get the results no sooner then BBC or anyone else. (actually often times BBC had the results first since many of them came in while others were still showing commercials)

GAT_00: Which is why I watched MSNBC last night.

Which is why I listened to NPR and then caught the local news here in Anchorage.

Melissa Block was a little too quick to bury Republicans but Robert Siegel did a good job.

I had a hard time watching ANY coverage on ANY channel. The graphics were awful, and so was the reporting, particularly on MSNBC. Ed Shultz sucks ass. Stop yelling at me, dude. And Olbermann declaring, "This isn't historic." Whatever gets you through the night, buck-o.

Surprisingly, the best coverage was on a local station. Suck it, Wolf.

GranoblasticMan: Which is a microcosm of the election process as a whole. People don't vote for candidates, they vote for parties.

People vote for platitudes like "lower taxes!" and "cut spending!" rather than ideas (what taxes? what spending? how is it going to affect me?)

I was flipping around and all the cable coverage was awful.

I think Brian Williams at NBC did a good job.