If it weren’t already the name of a novel and subsequent movie, “Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close” would be a great slogan to paint on a banner, celebrating TV news coverage on election night. Every four years the stakes run high—and the volume runs even higher.
Often tense, sometimes shouty, TV news coverage on the night of a presidential election is a thing of teeth-grinding beauty. Like peanut butter and chocolate, it offers an improbably delicious counterbalance of flavors: tiptoeing caution (“still too close to call,”) and lurching, mad speculation (insert your own Dick Morris joke here).
In 2008, some 71 million turned to cable and broadcast TV to watch the results of the presidential election, according to Nielsen. They not only got to watch history in the making, but they also got to see some crazy, reportorial holograms on CNN. The key is to not think too hard about questions of journalistic value. Just sit back and enjoy the spectacle.
Tonight promises to be even more exciting.
Yes, there will be some predictable moments. CNN will definitely pack more pundits into its studio than aphids on an infected leaf. Chuck Todd will certainly flaunt his goatee. And there’s a 37.89 percent probability that at least one out of every two reporters born in an odd number year will make a reference to Nate Silver within the first five to seven minutes of being on the air.
In short, expect lots of bewildering numbers to be tossed around authoritatively.
There will also be moments of genuine surprise. The joy of watching high-pressure, live TV is that you never quite know when it will go off the rails in some new and memorable fashion.
Can you feel the thrill running up your leg?
Game on.
