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Networks go slow in announcing Obama win

BY VERNE GAY | verne.gay@newsday.com

11:22 PM EST, November 4, 2008

Tim Russert's famous declaration in 2000 was "Florida, Florida, Florida," and knowing a good thing when they heard it, the networks collectively chanted, "Ohio, Ohio, Ohio" in 2004. Last night viewers heard caution, caution, caution, which could be called a state of mind.

Television botched coverage of Election Night 2000. Armed with faulty exit poll data, it came perilously close to getting it wrong in 2004 again. There would be no such misstep in 2008. This one was effectively over by 8 p.m., when NBC and ABC called Pennsylvania for Barack Obama, and completely over when Ohio fell to his column by 9:30. But the networks bit their tongues - hard to do when so many were wagging.

There were good reasons for caution besides the obvious one. California polls hadn't even closed by 9:30 p.m. Eastern Time, and networks are loath to call a race until the big kahuna has spoken. Meanwhile, 200 electoral votes were in the bag for Obama by 9:30 p.m., although as ABC's Charlie Gibson reminded viewers, "We are not going to project until we have the 270" necessary for victory.

But that was a waste of breath. It was over, and everyone knew it was over. Network newspeople are good journalists, but they're lousy actors, and you didn't have to work hard to read their faces - particularly MSNBC's resident Bush-basher Keith Olbermann, whose mug alternated between contained joy and outright gloating. Meanwhile, there weren't a lot of laughs over at Fox News.

What was missing last night - besides Russert, who sadly died in June - was drama and the sheer historic significance that America's first black president was about to be elected.

It was left to Republican analysts and consultants to begin a post-mortem on the John McCain campaign. "A bad time to be a Republican," declared former Reagan speechwriter Peggy Noonan to Katie Couric.

Each network had a unique style, and if a viewer held fast to just one through the night, he or she would have been caught in a distinct alternate universe from that of its rivals. "Avuncular" was the word for ABC - Gibson's style - which offered a little more emphasis on overview, along with the occasional shot of swirling crowds in Times Square.

"The Evening News with Katie Couric" closed its special 6:30 p.m. edition with a collage of TV images that have bombarded viewers the last two years, accompanied by a soundtrack from the band The Last Goodnight. CNN offered a pair of remarkable innovations - a holographic image of reporter Jessica Yellin transported to the New York studio, standing opposite Wolf Blitzer and John King's so-called "magic wall," which offered breakdowns of races county by county, neighborhood by neighborhood.

The next president, though, may not have been paying attention. He had other things on his mind.