Major networks across the board will sacrifice a crucial night of the November sweeps period in the name of civic duty. Election Night coverage starts at 8 p.m. on most broadcast networks and presumably continues on through the wee hours of the morning. Here’s your handy-dandy guide to Election Night viewing.
ABC News: Peter Jennings anchors Vote 2004 with the help of George Stephanopoulos and Terry Moran. Former Salon.com writer Jake Tapper will have regular “Ballot Watch” reports.
CBS News: Despite recent reports doubting Dan Rather’s journalistic cred, he’ll continue to anchor Campaign 2004 coverage. Frankly, DCist is pleased Rather will be back this election night as we fondly remember the homey expressions he used last time around. Our favorite was when he called the 2000 presidential race “hotter then ice cream in a microwave.”
NBC News: Tom Brokaw will take the helm for Decision 2004 one last time for NBC News. This will be the veteran broadcaster’s last presidential election before he steps down from anchors chair on Dec. 1. Tim Russert of “Meet the Press” will be by Brokaw’s side, hopefully with that same nifty white board and erasable markers like last time.
PBS: Count on Jim Lehrer to bring some decency and seriousness to tonight vote-off on PBS. We suspect that while PBS may have the lowest viewership tomorrow night, it may be the only one worth watching.
Cable News: Of course, we can’t forget about cable network news. CNN, Fox and MSNBC will be out in full force with their campaign teams. You won’t be able to escape them. We just spied the Rockettes dancing on Democracy Plaza on MSNBC!
MTV News: No, that’s not a typo. MTV News will be showing a special edition of its popular video countdown show, “Total Request Live,” where they’ll update the audience on election results. Expect field reports from Kurt Loder, John Norris, Sway and Gideon Yago.
Comedy Central: “The Daily Show” will broadcast “Indecision 2004: Prelude to a Recount” live an hour earlier at 10 p.m. tonight to report on the reporting of the election. It’s a chance for some real time mocking of the media, and you won’t want to miss it.
Worried that the networks will feed you misinformation like last time? Well, so are we, but the AP reports that “ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, Fox News Channel and The Associated Press collaborated to construct a new exit polling system from scratch.” We hope this means that no network actually calls a state before the polls close, and show some election night caution.
So DCers, who are you watching the Election Night results with?
