NY Times takes a look back with a video

Our blog has been lacking in the flashy video factor, and we’ve failed to evaluate any online video coverage so far. We’ve also had only one post on the New York Times. So with this video, we’ll kill two birds with one stone by showing that the online Times can report politics in word form, but also incorporates some nice video features usually only seen on the likes of CNN or Fox.

 

http://www.nytimes.com/packages/html/politics/2008-election-overview/

more about “NY Times takes a look back with a video“, posted with vodpod

 

CNN’s headlines four days after the election

Four days after it was all over, 6 out of 10 of the most viewed articles on CNN were related to Barack Obama or #1 and #4 SARAH PALIN (wait, I thought she lost…) Do we care there was infighting in the McCain-Palin camp AFTER she lost and the election is over? Apparently the American people do, but I’d like to see the coverage focused on Obama. 

 

 

1 Talk of infighting follows Palin

2 Obama apologizes for seance remark

3 Obama: Act ‘swiftly’ on economy

4 Commentary: Palin back home

5 Armed guards watch church services

6 Stiller, Rock don’t bathe for work

7 Paloma becomes Category 3 storm

8 Obama girls go to White House

9 My REAL life as a call girl

10 Obama stays on message

 

Obama Headlines- Keepin’ it classy, keeping it simple

Fox News: “American History”

Fox keeps it simple, but how true it is.

 

CNN: “Change has come to America”

Going with the Obama quote as the headline, it gets the point across.

 

NPR: “Obama sails to a sweeping victory, Democrats Tighten Grip on House and Senate”

Maybe the most informational headline in my mind, because it tells how Obama not only won, but won easily, and by a huge margin. The Senate and House part is plenty relevant to the big picture too.

 

NY Times: “OBAMA-Racial Barrier Falls as Voters Embrace Call for Change”

The only headline that mentions the relationship between Obama’s victory and race relations in the U.S. Enough said.

 

San Francisco Chronicle: “Barack Obama: Change has come to America”

Same as CNN, perfectly encompasses the vibe right know.

 

Obama takes it, and takes it by a lot

An epic (in fact the longest) campaign and a fierce battle between Barack Obama and John McCain made for hyped, biased, sometimes irrelevant media coverage. But throw that out the window cause it’s all over. Our nation has chosen Obama. Overwhelmingly. I thought this Obama email perfectly sums up what Obama talked about in his acceptance speech, and what the suddenly feel-good online media is talking about afterward.

 I’m about to head to Grant Park to talk to everyone gathered there, but I wanted to write to you first.

 We just made history.

 And I don’t want you to forget how we did it.

 You made history every single day during this campaign — every day you knocked on doors, made a donation, or talked to your family, friends, and neighbors about why you believe it’s time for change.

 I want to thank all of you who gave your time, talent, and passion to this campaign.

 We have a lot of work to do to get our country back on track, and I’ll be in touch soon about what comes next.

 But I want to be very clear about one thing…

 All of this happened because of you.

 Thank you,

Barack

 Whether you supported Obama or McCain (I thought McCain gave quite a composed, classy final speech, focusing on bringing the party together.) Whether you’re stoked out of your mind right now or down in the dumps, I think we all realize there is some serious change in the works from the past eight years.

How accurate are the online polls?

How accurate are online polls? It seems as though every site I’ve visited today has a poll of some sort, including news sites. There are all sorts of polls asking questions. “Who will be the next president?” “Who is more likely to face crisis within their first months of presidency?” The news sites providing us coverage of the presidential election are doing polls. But is this information actually relevant? Some news sites cater more to the Republican Party and others Democratic. So, depending on which news site you may be visiting, polls asking essentially the same questions can have completely different results. Usually people tend to go to the news site that provides the news that they would most like to hear and agree with. Getting results from one group of people doesn’t seem like it would be very accurate, yet most of these polls from Fox or CNN are viewed as reliable data. Think before you buy that “oh, Obama is ten percent up on McCain” line from CNN.

 

 

 

Newspapers Endorsing the Candidates and Mark Morford

This comes a little late, but I noticed last week on the Chronicle’s page that they had chosen to endorse Obama. Surprise! A bunch of other newspapers endorsed last week, and guess what—Obama cleaned up with an endorsement ratio of 3-1 over McCain according to the LA Times. What puzzles me is why do the endorsement thing in the first place these days? Maybe it’s just newspaper tradition at this point, but isn’t that totally a distraction to the real election news? Might you even lose some of the McCain readership? I am liking how and what the Chronicle decides to put up on the election, and I even support Obama, but the press endorsement seems irrelevant and lame in modern political races.

On a lighter note, our group said we would cover strictly politics pages, but I’d like to highlight a specific Chronicle writer’s opinion column about the election. Mark Morford is (obviously) biased being an opinion writer but the guy knows how to write about interesting and sometimes overlooked aspects of the election.

His writing is upper tier, almost snooty and is full of wild concepts, metaphors and incredibly wordy sentences. But the stuff he brings up is usually relevant. This week he went inside the head of undecided voters in his column. How the heck could they still be undecided? He asked. Do these people have any idea what’s going on? Yet he makes the point that undecideds will play an enormous role in deciding the outcome in a couple weeks. A few weeks ago, he wrote about how if the entire world could vote in this election, that Obama would win in a landslide. He cited the Economist’s “Global Electoral College” poll as a good indicator. These kinds of things make you (at least they made me) think about aspects of the election beyond the everyday goings-on and mudslinging of Obama vs. McCain.

Check Morford out, he’s definitely a unique aspect to Chronicle politics.

FOX NEWS: Crisis Catches Your Eye

Fox news brought the people an interesting story today. They stepped it up a notch with a featured story on crisis being common for new presidents. The story wasn’t just about how generally new presidents face crisis but they then asked for the public’s input with a poll that went along with the story. The poll asked, “Which president do you think would face an international crisis in his first year elected?” This story is especially controversial because Senator Joe Biden’s comment that Barack Obama would face a “generated crisis.” Fox did a good job on their featured story because it is an interesting topic but it is also controversial and catches the eye of readers quickly. Also, the story was made somewhat interactive by the poll that asked for what the people thought about it.
To read the fox news story go to: http://elections.foxnews.com/2008/10/22/biden-crisis/

NPR Election 2008: Left-Leaning Simplicity?

Do you think NPR.org when you think breaking election coverage? Probably not…you might think of the soothing voice of Melissa Block on All Things Considered. It turns out their online election coverage is pretty darn stimulating as well—and the best part is you can choose whether to read or listen for most stories.

It seems NPR has always taken some flak for being a bit left leaning. But a closer examination of their online version doesn’t reveal it. The story “Campaigns Take Flak for using Robocalls” is not only different than what the other online media is covering, but it’s obviously something relevant to the voter when they hear that annoying recorded voice. It’s also a balanced story, talking about how both McCain and Obama are using negativity in their robocalls. “McCain Campaigns in Missouri” and “Obama Campaigns in Florida” offered side-by-side is about as balanced as it gets (even if those are the most boring headlines you’ve ever heard.)

In my opinion, NPR is balanced and none of their election stories from today were fluff (unlike Fox making Obama visiting his sick grandma the top story.) Some would call NPR’s style boring, I think it’s good reporting. Plus, you can’t resist that soothing NPR story every once and a while. Grade: A-

CNN politics page: Attacking your senses!

The CNN.com politics page has what’s called Election Center 2008. The Election Center attacks the senses with interactive features and election info. CNN has some of the most trusted election coverage not only because they traditionally put the big issues first, but their wide variety of stories. Election Center also has an array of different polls to get the reader involved (and, gasp, thinking!) about their own opinion.

Election center has an election timeline tracker as well as an issue tracker. Those are the kind of features we want to see! The election tracker has some cool things such as information and charts on: polling, fundraising, add spending, candidate visits, and past results. The issue tracker is a pie chart that displays the issues that are most important to the public according to the polls. There is also a page that just simply has icons for many of the important issues and one can simply click on the icon and then it will show a report on each candidates view and stance on the topic. Does Fox have these kind of features? Nope. Grade: A+

Fox News Politics Page

Fox news has chosen to lead their election coverage with how McCain used the word “whips” in reference to beating Obama’s “you-know-what” in the next debate. The article explained how this single word has caused McCain’s ratings to drop because of the racial association. As a consequence, Fox News claims people are viewing it as a prejudice comment and are losing respect for McCain. I’m sure the last thing McCain wants to do is soil his reputation especially by coming across racist. Whooping or whipping is common terminology amongst people in a competition so now it’s controversial since one competitor is black and the other is white? Really Fox? Grade: C-