2008 Election..According to the Media.

I didn't watch TV or, listen to the radio to follow the election for 2008's Presidential Election. I had homework to catch up on, and I don't have a television, so instead, I used Google Maps Election Results. On Wednesday, after the election, I searched on news websites like CNN and Fox News, as well as YouTube to see how the different stations broadcasted the election results.
Simply watching the election fold out on Google Maps was boring, but at same time eliminated any media bias. It was interesting though to know how many citizens voted for whom in each county. As well, on the map, when you hover the mouse over a state, it tells you how many electoral votes that state has. Another thing that was different in this form of broadcasting that I noticed is in the news clips and reports of the results of the election; an enormous amount of emphasis was placed on Barack Obama's ethnicity. A Fox News, a clip was showed of an African-American reporter who used the analogy that when he was a boy, growing up in a black neighborhood, his father told him the American people would never elect a black president. In my opinion, I don't think so much emphasis should placed on Obama's ethnicity, especially in the media and by the reporters. Being proud of one's heritage and the fact that we now have a black president is a good thing, and by no means is it not. But couldn't we be overlooking the fact that what is really important is what Obama says he will do and what he actually does? I think Obama's failure in his presidency would seriously hurt the black community of America, but he's success; then is a time to rejoice.
Another thing I noticed was that with the simple map, there is no emotion, which seemed to eliminate bias. It let users of it to freely observe whatever state or county they wished, and gave ample information about each. The Wallstreet Journal recently published a video on YouTube, portraying a life-size cutout (much like the one that sits in a lounge in Harbor Hall) and that people didn't even notice it set up on the street. It seemed ridiculous to think that people would think it was actually Obama when up close, and the Journal then showed clips of voters interviewing the "fake" Obama. [1]
The internet as a medium for information and source is a new resource, but caution should used as well. I could not locate how Google got the information for their map, how they calculated the totals, so I checked with a few friends periodically who I knew were watching the election on television, and the numbers were relatively the same. So whether or not you watched the election fold out through television, or the radio, or the internet, information was still the same, but it was also presented very differently.