Slate, Nov. 2, 2010 Slate Columns
If you must, tune in only at the top of the hour.
I've never understood the compulsion obeyed by so many of my fellow journalists and other politics-obsessed acquaintances to park themselves in front of the TV on election night and wait ... and wait ... and wait for something worthy of their time to be reported.
Election-night coverage is easily the dullest of the journalistic genres, which is saying a lot. The networks and the Associated Press all draw the same voting data from Edison Research, which boasts of its information monopoly on its site: "When you watch TV on Election Night and you hear projections of the results or analysis about who voted for whom--it comes from Edison's Exit Polls." Theoretically, the networks could project the winners of races as soon as they think the Edison data support such a forecast. But nowadays the networks don't, because they fear retaliation from the government, which in the past has threatened to erect legislation regulating the projection of winners before all or most precincts close in a state.
So network anchors "voluntarily" withhold predictions until most precincts close and then--
sprongggg--Wolf or one of the Wolfettes leaps out of a box, the computer graphics start churning on your screen, and you're told with heraldic fanfare that Flumblebum has won that hotly contested Senate seat!
(Continued on Slate.)
