In an article at MediaChannel.org, Danny Schechter states that the "lurches" that our media experiences when jumping from one story to another do a disservice to those paying attention to the news.

At Blogcritics.org, Eric Olsen ponders why, while there are some concerns with the process in this year's election, that some in the media are not so quick to "give up" on John Kerry's loss in the presidential race.

Well, I suppose it's the same as promoing things on tonight's newscast - ratings. Or in the case of online or print media - readership.

Michelle Malkin points to an interesting find by some blogs and Free Republic posters (not sure of the original source just yet) about some images of President Bush and First Lady Laura Bush on the CNN / Netscape website that had filenames that are, irrelevant of your political leaning, inexcusable to have on a news organization website. The fact that some employees may have gone out on their own to do this does nothing but cause harm to CNN's brand and viewer opinion of their ethics.

At this time, at least one of the images that have been found have had a name change - but not all. This one is still up.

[update: 12pm] This file is now gone, too.

I have reached out to Time Warner Corporate Communications today, but have not yet received a response.

[update: 1:55pm] Drudge leads us to Tabloid Column, who has screenshots of the CNN site.

[update: 11/5 1:38pm] Steve Rubel posts a link to a Register article on the subject, where CNN has stated that it was purely a Netscape issue, and was nothing placed on the CNN.com website. Also, the employee who named the photographs has apparently "been terminated."

Media columnist Bob Betcher writes at TCPalm.com that CBS affiliate WPEC 12 in Florida made a boo-boo at 2am on Wednesday morning while the presidential election returns were still coming in - the channel shifted to a pre-programmed informercial. It took fifteen minutes and a few angry phone calls to the station, but sure enough Dan Rather and the CBS News coverage returned after a short time.

Notorious MiG writes in with this link to the Kerry Spot, and says:

For you baseball fans, there's some scuttlebutt on the web that Curse of the Bambino left the Red Sox and deposited itself on Kerry. Result, Boston wins Series. Kerry loses election.

But hey, what do I know about baseball?

[ed: The Notorious MiG does hail from Russia, and isn't exactly a big fan of baseball, to say the least]

The cablers all did a little something different when it came out that John Kerry had conceded this election to President Bush.

CNN: "Kerry Concedes" banner

MSNBC: No banner

FOX News: "Bush Wins Presidency", fireworks, Presidential Seal

On the networks:

CBS: No graphics, Bill Plante speaking on White House lawn

NBC: No graphics, David Gregory speaking with Katie Couric

FOX local: running FOX News feed, Shep Smith

ABC: "The View"

UPN: running FOX News feed

PBS: running Mister Rogers or Teletubbies

[7:44pm Eastern] NBC has Lester Holt discussing what method that the network uses in order to make its projections, briefly bringing up the decision desk, and that there would be some points where the desk would declare some races "too close to call." NBC has made it clear that they would be very, very careful overall, so expect them to perhaps be the "safe" place to watch, and perhaps the place to hear projections last.

[7:50pm] MSNBC has its lower right hand corner graphic alternating between the % of popular vote that each candidate has, number of electoral votes currently projected, and the "actual" number of popular votes already counted.

[7:53pm] FOX News' Chris Wallace running some statistics / graphs with subsegments of groups that agreed/disagreed with the War in Iraq. "A lot of people always thought that this election would end up as a referendum on President Bush. And if it turns out that way, the War in Iraq may turn out to be the decisive issue."

[8:00pm] FOX News does not call Florida, Pennsylvania, and New Hampshire - too close. New Jersey, Delaware, Connecticut, DC, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Maine projected Kerry. Tennessee, Oklahoma, Alabama projected for Bush. Something peculiar about a "4th" electoral vote in Maine, as they are only assigning 3 of the 4 to Kerry at this time. FOX News count 77 Kerry, 66 Bush. MSNBC concurs on electoral count.

[8:10pm] Howard Dean on MSNBC - he thought that the Osama bin Laden video that emerged last week would have been a big help for the President, but isn't so sure as of today.

[8:20pm] Chris Matthews interrupts Joe Scarborough to make NBC's call of Bush taking North Carolina.

[8:35pm] Rafat Ali reports that NBC's live feed is online, here. ABC News Now is online as well, for a fee - Check your cable television / broadband provider, as some stream it for free. Comcast does, at least in New Jersey.

[8:35pm] Engadget calls Tablet PCs "the new whiteboards."

[8:37pm] ABC projects South Carolina for Bush.

[8:41pm] At Lost Remote, Frank Catalano informs that one Senator was prematurely calling the election, it seems.

[8:42pm] NBC's Tom Brokaw, speaking with Howard Dean, calls Virginia for Bush. Electoral update: Bush 102, Kerry 77

[8:44pm] Brokaw goes to Lisa Myers, who reports that the Republican party claims that the exit polls, as compared to what is in the actual votes, have underrepresented votes for Bush.

[8:50pm] Andrew Cline says that he took a CNN exit poll today, but believes that the network wasn't so concerned about trying to get everyone to take the poll.

[9:00pm] MSNBC projects Kansas, Texas, Nebraska, South Dakota, North Dakota, Wyoming for Bush. New York, Rhode Island for Kerry. Colorado, Florida (still), Ohio (still), Missouri, New Mexico "too close." Michigan, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Arizona, Pennsylvania, Arkansas, New Hampshire, Mississippi, Louisiana "too early." Electoral update: Bush 156, Kerry 112

[9:07pm] FOX News' Mort Kondracke says "Why don't we just tell people what the exit polling says and then start to match it up against these things."

[9:15pm] TVNewser posts about FOX News making an incorrect projection about Indiana's gubernatorial race.

[9:17pm] CBS has John Roberts showing a U.S. map detailing the amount of money spent during election campaigns on advertising dollars. $116 million spent in Florida, Ohio was second at $104 million.

[9:22pm] Pavel at Command Post posts about FOX announcing that Colorado's Amendment 36 will be a "No," keeping all of the state's 9 electoral votes together, rather than splitting them by percentage.

[9:25pm] MSNBC projects Louisiana, Mississippi for Bush. Electoral update: 171 Bush, 112 Kerry

[9:44pm] Tom Brokaw, on NBC, states that President Bush has apparently called some reporters to his living quarters to say something "on camera." Then, of course, the commercials come on. Turns out, it was just the "family portrait" of the Bush family at home, watching the election returns.

[10:48pm] MSNBC gives AZ to Bush, PA to Kerry. Just prior to this, Joe Scarborough and Andrea Mitchell are kind of going back and forth about what states the Republicans can consider "going their way" or not. Seemed a little uncomfortable. I think Matthews was happy to be able to break this up.

[11/3 10:30am] MSNBC's Carl Rochelle reporting that it might not be too long before President Bush could come out and "declare" victory. James Hattori, in Boston, seems to be expecting concession from the Kerry camp.

Gawker Media's Nick Denton writes about the problems that a lot of popular sites have had today due to the huge amount of web traffic trying to visit them - and how some hosts have done really well to adjust accordingly. Denton reports that Gawker Media's host, The Planet, has "been extremely unresponsive" to their requests.

"We're moving as soon as we have an alternative. I advise any high-traffic site to avoid The Planet."

That's pretty definitive, I'd say.

[7:13pm Eastern] CBS put up their 34-3 (Bush-Kerry) electoral vote estimate right at 7pm, ABC did the same. CBS using a television screen - on screen - with Dan Rather and a colleague pointing things out on various maps. ABC has Peter Jennings tossing to various correspondents, with a lower-right corner graphic with "Bush 34, Kerry 3, 270 to win" - NBC is playing it very cool when it comes to "predictions."

As ABC leaves for commercial, Jennings says "Huge amount to talk about tonight...and wherever you are in the country...we can just sense from even here in New York City that the focus is very sharp on the potential for change in America."

Matthew Sheffield informs that CBS called Kentucky for President George Bush at 6:40pm Eastern.

It's not on their map or online yet, as far as I can tell. But looking at the details, where 175 of 3482 districts have reported, Bush has received 58% of the votes so far.

Neither myself or RatherBiased have confirmed that this has not been reported elsewhere.

Rory O'Connor and MediaChannel.org has made an early call on the presidential election, "based on analysis of election exit polling from 14 "battleground" states." Sez O'Connor:

We believe our readers should have access to the same election information as the anchors and other journalists, so we’re publishing the exit-poll numbers as we receive them – and making the early call.

It's going out on a limb, but I guess it's a gutsy move. Their call is at 6:30pm, Eastern Time. I'm not of the same opinion as of this time, so I'm not re-posting what he's said - you'll have to read for yourselves.

[update: 8:16pm] I've been informed that this "call" has been made by Rory O'Connor on his own, and that MediaChannel.org has not said anything of the sort as of yet - which is evident on their website.

On FOX News, political analyst Michael Barone was just on with Brit Hume. They're talking about the decision desk that forwards information to the anchor desk for reporting. Barone says that polling theory states up to a 1 in 20 chance of any poll being incorrect. In 2000, the network went with a 1 in 250 chance before they would run with anything on air. This year, unless it's a 1 in 300 chance, it's not getting broadcast.

[4:55pm Eastern] Joe Trippi on MSNBC with Lester Holt, talking about traffic on the Internet spiking - mentions that the Internet-savvy generation is taking it to the Web, and that sites like Instapundit and Daily Kos "getting crashed."

Now this is what the bloggers are a part of, the mobilization of people, both young and old, to get information and distribute it to others. The Internet has made it easy to put people with similar interests (or polar opposite interests, frankly) together, in a way that just isn't possible - to scale, of course - in the real world.

[5:49pm Eastern] Trippi is back on.

Holt: Is this a totally different vein of information? Are we seeing things we wouldn't normally get through traditional reporting?

Trippi: Uhh, yeah. I mean, we're seeing...the 'Net is spreading information faster and faster.. One of the things we're seeing now is network exit polls are spreading across the Internet, and people are going to these sites, and are actually reading what we're not going to talk about until much later tonight. It's kind of a total switch in how information's being disseminated that we're seeing out there.

Cyberjournalist is asking if bloggers will "post exit polls, call race before news organizations."

Who can say for sure - exit polls have shown up on Wonkette, Drudge, and The Corner. I assume as we get closer to 7 or 8pm Eastern, a few more will start showing up.

I can see bloggers posting random information here and there, but most blogs don't want to get caught in the same fashion that the MSM did the last time around.

Kevin at Wizbang! makes an excellent suggestion. Skip the talk radio shows today. I agree - because, as he says, you're only going to hear "You must vote "X"

Spot on, methinks. I'll stick to multiple television coverage, seems to offer more choices, less preaching.

Howard Dean is on CNN's "American Morning" right now.

Started off just talking about people getting out and vote, reaffirms his statements that he would rather someone go out and vote Republican than not go out and vote at all.

Compares Tommy Franks seemingly shifting positions to a Zell Miller-like situation.

Soledad O'Brien asks Dean how it feels "being on the outside." Dean says he feels like he's right in the middle of things. Didn't want to discuss the potential for John Kerry to choose him to be part of his candidate if he was elected. [ed: stupid question]

At The Command Post, Andrew Ian Dodge chimes in on the sentiments of the British media towards the American presidential race.

The San Jose Mercury News posts some of the schedules for both local coverage and cable news networks for this afternoon / evening's Election information.

My personal favorite:

KRON : The independent station's own election coverage, with some CNN coverage mixed in, starts at 4:30 p.m., with a break for "Dr. Phil" from 7 to 8 p.m.

I mean, we can't miss "Dr. Phil," right?

The Chicago Tribune publishes information for Chicagoland-area media schedules.

The Kansas City Star details what will be happening in that market.

The Akron Beacon Journal features an article by R.D. Heldenfels that seems kind of silly at first, but sets in quickly as reality. All the changes in the aggregation and distribution of news and information about the election that we've seen in the runup to today will be outdone by the way things will be done in advance of the 2008 season. The Internet will have evolved further, mobile technology will be even more ubiquitous, and guess what - the sheer volume of information available will be even more overwhelming than it is now.

Iowa's KCRG-TV reports that radio DJ Steve Soboroff on Iowa City's KCJJ "has come under fire" for "joking" on the air Monday morning about Election Day voting.

Soboroff told his Monday morning audience due to the record amount of voters, Democrats will vote on Tuesday and Republicans on Wednesday Thursday and Friday.

Sure, it might seem common sensical to think that this was a joke, but combined with the fact that a Democratic county official was on the radio at the same time, and it doesn't look too good. This could be curious to see if the state's election board and the FCC look into the complaint.

[update] My friend Jerry points out that The Onion has a story along these lines, just not necessarily about the same party lines.

Over at the Lone Star Times, Chris Begala still thinks that the networks will play "follow the leader" tonight in their election coverage.

At the very least, this post represents what a lot of people are thinking about the American people's reactions towards the news media - they've become cynical.

If you're looking for what should be the most comprehensive election-specific coverage, then you absolutely have to check out The Command Post all day on Tuesday. (and beyond!)

Yes, Michele told us all to do so, but now I'm seconding that emotion. Be there for election specific info you're not going to find anywhere else. Almost 200 bloggers across the country are going to be filing reports on all things electable. Sure, the AP will have 5,000 stringers counting votes and reporting in, but let's see what our blogging brethren have to say, too.

For those of us wondering who was behind the curtain at Electoral-vote.com, the great mystery has been solved. Okay, so there wasn't any nifty detective work involved. The Votemaster is....Andrew Tanenbaum, professor of computer science at the Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam, The Netherlands - and most importantly, American citizen.

[Via J. D. Lasica]

In the Johns Hopkins University Gazette, William R. Brody writes about civility, or the lack therof, with regard to election coverage and discussion in 2004.

Sure, the "sport" of presidential campaigns makes for good television ratings, but is there anything harmful in this high-decibel demagoguery? I think so. In much the same way we are "numbed" by a relentless exposure to violence through the media, our innate sense of decency, fairness and truth subtly accommodates itself to ever-increasing levels of political mendacity. It's not unlike the way our ears are able to reset their sensitivity in the presence of a continuous exposure to loud noise.

Agreed. The framing of the media's coverage, in essence, decides what viewers will pick which media outlet to follow, some would surmise. While it sounds almost foolish to have to suggest being more "civil," it's not so outlandish of a request, is it?

If you're not sure whose coverage to watch on Election Day, this Associated Press item explains what CNN is doing in order to swing interested viewers in their direction.

Nine University of Florida journalism students are taking part in an "experiment" of sorts with the help of Cingular Wireless and Textamerica in order to set up a moblog at uf.textamerica.com. The students have been covering the 2004 election season as well as other events taking place on their school's campus. The point? Well, this statement tells it all for me:

"[The students] have become 'embedded reporters,' unobtrusively placing themselves in situations and getting inside stories without a lot of intimidating crews, cameras, microphones or lights. With mobile technology, they don't change the event just by being there to report."

More details available here in a press release.

PBS' Terence Smith reports Monday about what Americans watching the news media for up to the minute results and information about the presidential election will see this time around. Smith speaks with CBS News vice president Linda Mason, NBC's executive in charge of election night, Bill Wheatley, and Associated Press managing editor Mike Silverman about what's going to happen in 2004 that wasn't done in 2000.

Interestingly enough, both CBS and NBC have taken one identical change - moving their news "decision desk" away from "backstage." This way, staffers will have all the information necessary at their fingertips, but wouldn't run the risk of being influenced to make a particular announcement because of what the competition was doing.

[update] Hal Boedeker of the Orlando Sentinel offers more.

Be sure and check out MSNBC's Ticktock blog for "minute by minute" coverage of this year's election. The site is written by Alan Boyle, MSNBC's science editor.

I'm looking forward to Boyle's planned coverage of the "inside baseball about how NBC News and MSNBC.com are covering this election."

CNET's Jim Hu rounds up the features that online news sites are going to use to provide up-to-the-minute election coverage.

Baseball Crank has a nifty post pointing out poll-closing times for Election Day. If you're looking to sync up your television habits in order to know when to order the next round (you know you're going out for this one), then check it out.

Strategiy.com informs that Orbit News in the United Arab Emirates will feature "extensive coverage on the most heated topic of [Tuesday, November 2], the election of the new US President."

Orbit News features programming from all of the American news networks, and will, as far as I can tell, offer announcements and analysis from a wide array of pundits and anchors from U.S. broadcasts.

In the Santa Cruz Sentinel, Tom Honig writes that "2004 will forever remain in my head as the election that shook the foundation of journalism."

Has politics sent the media spinning this year, or did the media bring it on themselves, coinciding with a big election year?

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette has an article by Jerome Sherman about a lawsuit put forth by another Pittsburgh paper, the Tribune-Review, against a Pennsylvania state Senator. The Tribune-Review claims that the Senator, Allen Kukovich, is misusing statements by his opponent from the paper in campaign literature. Kukovich, however, believes otherwise - pointing out the Tribune-Review's endorsement Republican candidate Bob Regola.

The Associated Press picks up on the story out of Minnesota this week, where it was announced that there would be rules on when members of the media could be at polling sites on Election Day next Tuesday.

Minnesota's Star Tribune has an article on Wednesday about new regulations put on the media with regard to their coverage at polling places in the state. Mark Brunswick has the details, most importantly the time limits that journalists can spend at any one location and the necessary process that must be followed in order to get access in the first place.

In USA Today, Peter Johnson writes that in 2004, the media isn't just covering the story when it comes to elections - they are the story.

Dan Gillmor writes that The Economist may endorse John Kerry for president in 2004, a reversal from the last election, when they were backing George W. Bush.

Once again, MediaChannel.org and the Tyndall Report are offering the fourth Citizens Debate Scorecard on Wednesday night for the final debate between presidential candidates in Tempe, Arizona. Make sure you drop by and sign up to rate the event, and return to the site when the broadcast ends!

On Saturday, MediaChannel.org offers up a double-dip of debate details for your reading pleasure.

First, they feature a piece by Dr. Robert Beard of yourDictionary.com, who breaks down what each of the candidates said on Friday night - to the word.

Next up, the site presents the results from their third Citizens Debate Scorecard of the political season, which includes data on how party supporters felt their candidate fared, opinions on the event's format, and moderator ratings.

Over at MediaChannel.org, Rory O'Connor writes about the possibility that President Bush is giving speeches and participating in other public events with the assistance of an earpiece, with someone on the other end "feeding" him lines. O'Connor leads us to isbushwired.com, which seems to be a clearinghouse for information on the topic, including events in which people state that they specifically heard another voice speaking the same words that the President would eventually say through a microphone only seconds later.

But to conclude the piece, Bush campaign media director Mark McKinnon issues a flat denial, saying "'The President has never been assisted by any audio signal." Is this a real story or just a theory? Has anyone heard this while watching any speech with President Bush in the last few years and can clarify? Even if this is just pure speculation that has begun to run a bit rampant, howcome I've never seen this story covered by a news organization? Stories much less credible than this have made the news, so why not this?

Check out this Flash movie, brought to you by not-for-profit media organization Free Press. It depicts an interesting mix of reality television with presidential debates...oh, and don't forget corporate sponsorship. If you do some research on the group, you will quickly find that they are all for "opening up" the flow of information to the public, and don't necessarily believe that big media serves that purpose - this video pretty much sums up their opinion on how they observe our political and social worlds to be combined, IMHO.

[Thanks to Ben for the tip.]

The Wall Street Journal provides their succinct "roundup" of how television, online news, and a few bloggers felt about Tuesday's vice presidential debate. Over at The National Debate, Robert Cox posts some of his observations, too.

First used last week to let 4,900 Americans rate the presidential candidates' debate, the Citizens Debate Scorecard was put into action by MediaChannel.org and the Tyndall Report. This week, they've set it up once again to rate the vice presidential candidates, Senator John Edwards and current VP Dick Cheney. Tuesday night, you can participate here after the debate concludes. MediaChannel's Tim Karr states that CNN, Reuters, TIME magazine, Cox News Service, Knight-Ridder and several city newspapers and TV stations have already requested tonight's data.

Ed Cone links to a debate transcript at the Des Moines Register. Super helpful for the fact checkers out there.

[update: 10/5/04 2:05pm] askSam has a searchable version of the debate, with a little more usability than a straight text version.

The Wall Street Journal offers up an article with three roundups of coverage of last night's presidential debate. They pull together happenings from CNN, FOX News, MSNBC and PBS alongside three news sites and a number of political bloggers.

- The Command Post has their chat room open to discuss the debate.
- CNN has a poll up about the political abilities of late-night television viewers. Short and sweet. Via Barista.
- Hugh Hewitt has a scorecard up with details on how the candidates did and what details about the camera view are important. Via Instapundit.
- Joe Territo is liveblogging. So is James Joyner. And Damian Penny.
- Is anyone putting the questions in graphics on the bottom of the screens? Just curious.
- Seems to be more splitscreens to show Bush's expressions towards Kerry's answers than vice versa.
- Jeff Jarvis asks something I was just thinking myself - "Why (on NBC, at least) is Bush 10 percent higher on the screen than Kerry?" I don't know if the splitscreen camera is "pool" or not, but on MSNBC it looks as if the angles are different. I think it's because of the positioning of cameras - any ideas? Time reports this week that the podiums were 50" tall, and were spaced far enough apart that the candidates would not have such a different in height when shown on screen together.
- MSNBC's Ron Reagan says that Kerry clearly won, Scarborough calls it a "very clear win on all points for John Kerry."
- What's with the "Hurricane Cheerleader" girl on MSNBC on the phone with her friends, and the people holding up the big "Poo" sign over their heads?

I'm going to comment live on the debate - though not so much about what is said, but how the coverage is working. Some initial thoughts:

- It's good to see that the cameras are taking a look at the opposite candidate that is speaking.
- One quality splitscreen so far, showing Senator Kerry seemingly agreeing with President Bush's point.
- Two more splitscreens, both done perfectly. One before Bush requested an extension to speak, another where Kerry gets to rebut.
- What happened to the "sitdown"? I had thought the candidates would be sitting in a different setting? Senator John Edwards pointed out on the "Imus in the Morning" program a few days ago that this would be the case.
- Jay Tea at Wizbang! is liveblogging with lots more detail on the politics of it all.

Over at askSam.com, they've posted the platforms for both the Republican and Democratic parties to help do a little "fact checking" while watching tonight's presidential debate.

[hat tip: Chris]

India's Sify.com has an article by Stephanie Griffith about the influence that bloggers can wield, especially regarding this year's presidential election.

Over at Wizbang!, Kevin Aylward points out a slight adjustment to a quote in an AP story that includes Senator John Kerry's infamous "I actually did vote for his $87 billion, before I voted against it" line. On Wednesday morning, an interview with Kerry and ABC's Diane Sawyer ran on the "Good Morning America" program. During the interview, Kerry said that the quote "was a very inarticulate way of saying something" and that it was said "late in the evening when I was dead tired." But, as Aylward links, the Washington Post reported back in March that this quote was said "at a noontime appearance."

I expect that some mud will fly here, but the most interesting thing is the AP article on the subject, which says "It was just a very inarticulate way of saying something and I had one of those inarticulate moments," but leaves out the "late in the evening" aspect of the quote. Obviously you can't say the gun is absolutely smoking, but it certainly doesn't look too good for the candidate or the wire story. If it's known as fact that Kerry made the comments while it was daytime, and then counters it saying that it was late at night, causing the gaffe, then the context around the quote is completely removed. Or at least that's how I see it.

The ABC News coverage of the interview, including the original quotes from the program, can be found here.