I stayed up til almost midnight last night, Central Time, watching the election returns.What struck me, last night, was how futuristic the coverage has become, thanks to computer power and flat panel touch screen TVs.
Twenty years ago if you'd seen 2008 portrayed in a movie with all the high tech gadgets we've got today it would have seemed unlikely.
I watched a bit of Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey a couple days ago. This movie came out in 1968. 2001 was a long ways away. Now, in 2008, Kubrick's vision of 2001 looks dated. The 1968 vision of the future had big clunky computers, cheesy-looking computer screens, huge video phones, rather than the small hand-held video phones that exist today. And nowhere on the Kubrick spaceship is there a flat panel touch screen TV.
Which brings me to last night. I watched John King masterfully use what's called the Magic Wall. A huge flat panel TV screen. John King was a master on CNN, Bill Hemmer equally masterful on Fox News.
Calling an election is extremely high tech in 2008. John King could bring up a county in Pennsylvania, see how the vote was going for last night, then instantly switch it to see how the same county performed in 2004 and 2000. Doing this it was easy to see that Obama was doing well, early on, compared to John Kerry in 2004 and Al Gore in 2000.
The TV setup for Grant's Park in Chicago, where Obama made his appearance after winning, was impressive. Huge TV screens beamed the TV coverage to the huge crowd. It all looked very futuristic. Like a Democratic Nuremberg Rally. When California was called for Obama, giving him the election, the gathered crowd got that info at the same time as the rest of the nation. It all somehow made it seem as if I, sitting in my living room, was part of it all. Because, I pretty much was.
Anyway, I thought the networks and the cable news stations all did a very good job last night. It must have been good. I stayed up way past my regular bedtime. And enjoyed what I was watching.
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