Media

After the watching the Election Night media coverage and the Newstainment media coverage, what are the differences between the two? (Consider purpose, delivery and intended outcome)




Ok, I love a good debate as much as the next guy, but even I know that debate equals opinion, which equals NON-concrete evidence and arguments. While watching the Election Night media coverage from 1960 with JFK vs. Richard Nixon all the way to the Obama McCain of 2008, I noticed that generally the facts, statistics, and projections based on those facts and statistics were dominant throughout the entire program. Typically you had two people sitting and chatting with interviews with other reporters or reliable sources. Generally speaking, they talked about the background of the candidates, the votes, where the votes were coming from, the statistics, the objective results. Most of what they said on Election night was fact or projection based on fact. While watching Bill O'Relly, the Ed show and programs like that, I saw lots of debate, lots of opinion, very little actual fact. It was mostly the ideas and conceptions and opinions of several people all shouting at each other to get their idea across, often delivered in a more comical way rather than dry and monotone like a lot of the Election night announcers. Newstainment reporters tend to be charismatic, energetic, very dramatic and their purpose I believe isn't to relay the facts, but to show their spins on the issues and how the candidates are presenting those issues.