CNN Got This One Right

There were a number of questions heading into Tuesday night that had nothing to do with who would win the election. They all had to do with who would cover the election.

No one will forget the fiasco from 2000, from a media standpoint, when all the networks called Florida for Al Gore, then for George Bush, then for Gore again, then for Bush, and finally, they made the call that nobody really knew. This time, however, they did it right.

On CNN, Wolf Blitzer and Co. didn't make one mistake. They waited until all the polls were closed to project the key states of California, Oregon and Washington. Upon doing so, they then went ahead and declared Obama the winner. Furthermore, CNN was the last out of all the networks to project that Obama had won Pennsylvania and Florida. But there's nothing wrong with that - accuracy should always trump the desire to be first. Sure, everyone turned out to be right in the end. But when people expected a closer race in those states, CNN waited to confirm the truth.


But where CNN really succeeded was in its coverage of the Obama rally at Grant Park. Instead of talking over all the live pictures from the massive gathering, each reporter, as well as Blitzer and Anderson Cooper in the Election Center, opted to simply show the pictures. The images spoke for themselves; there were estimates that about a quarter of a million people or more were there Tuesday night. And the pictures were incredible.

[Photos from NewYorkTimes.com]



CNN let what was being shown on television move the viewers, not what the commentators were saying. After Obama finished his victory speech, the cameras rolled as the crowd and Obama celebrated - and the reporters stayed silent. It was a banner night for the Democratic party, and a banner night for CNN's coverage.