How To Supplement Election Coverage? 241
An anonymous reader asks "What information sources and social networking sites will you be using to supplement the election coverage on TV next Tuesday? I am ready with a big HDTV with Comcast, a Mac mini, and and an Xbox 360. I also have two laptops (one good for websites and one for streaming video), an old-school Blackberry, a 'regular' cell phone, a Nokia N810, a Squeezebox, and finally Sirius Satellite Radio. Which websites should I watch for live county results? I already know about the Twitter Vote Report for tracking and reporting voting issues and I already watch 'CNN Reporters' on Friendfeed for the national flair. What other Twitter accounts should I follow? Which urgent ones should I send to my phones? Which YouTube accounts or keywords I should subscribe to in Miro? What are the most popular sites for posting 'on-scene' videos — iReport, Flickr, something else? I know most local Fox affiliates are great about streaming, but is there a page that lists all of the streams, in case I need to quickly focus on one city or area? Basically, how would you configure all those gadgets?" This reader might find some guidance in what to focus on from a video produced by reader (and data modeler) Bruce Nash that lays out a predicted timeline for when the media will call each state, depending on when the polls close and how tight each race is expected to be.
So really... (Score:4, Insightful)
whoa there.... (Score:5, Insightful)
"What information sources and social networking sites will you be using to supplement the election coverage on TV next Tuesday? I am ready with a big HDTV with Comcast, a Mac mini, and and an Xbox 360. I also have two laptops (one good for websites and one for streaming video), an old-school Blackberry, a 'regular' cell phone, a Nokia N810, a Squeezebox, and finally Sirius Satellite Radio. Which websites should I watch for live county results? I already know about the Twitter Vote Report for tracking and reporting voting issues and I already watch 'CNN Reporters' on Friendfeed for the national flair. What other Twitter accounts should I follow? Which urgent ones should I send to my phones? Which YouTube accounts or keywords I should subscribe to in Miro? What are the most popular sites for posting 'on-scene' videos â" iReport, Flickr, something else? I know most local Fox affiliates are great about streaming, but is there a page that lists all of the streams, in case I need to quickly focus on one city or area? Basically, how would you configure all those gadgets?"
I voted a couple of weeks ago, so plan on biking to work as usual, working then coming home, eating dinner with my wife, watching a few minutes of election coverage, then am going to bed. When I wake up on Wednesday morning, my fervent hopes are that this election is a blowout and will not have to be decided again by the courts.
Quantity, not quality (Score:1, Insightful)
You seem to think the more screens you watch the election results on, the better informed you will be. Actually, if you shut down all your electronic gadgets and read a good book (The Prince or Primary Colors spring to mind) you will wake up the next morning a better educated and wiser person. And whoever wins will still have won.
Toby Poynder
London, UK
Re:Dude.... (Score:3, Insightful)
Seriously...the guy's had two solid years of coverage of this damn election, and he hasn't had enough? I think he should just start beating his head against the wall repeatedly, it's a much more efficient means of self torture.
fellow human beings? (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, get out of the house. How about going to a party, or hosting one? Instead of sitiing on your duff, you can drink, discuss, and celebrate/commiserate as the results come in. Much more interesting than trying to consume a dozen newsfeeds at the same time, whatever good that might do.
Re:So really... (Score:4, Insightful)
Might I recommend Xanax? It sounds like you're a bit wound up there, big fella...
viral marketing (Score:5, Insightful)
The only site you need to check out the next morn (Score:4, Insightful)
Is the SCOTUS web site
Re:whoa there.... (Score:4, Insightful)
Surely someone isn't just marking this thread down because the idea that you SHOULDN'T be following the news up-to-the-second is so offensive to them? I suspect hacking on the part of CNN.com.
What possible use could you have for being THAT up to date? Even the media itself could really benefit from cooling down on the refresh rate, so to speak. Remember way back when they called the election for Bush, then had to take it back, then called it again, then took it back, then the supreme court decided? I remember watching CNN as the supreme court was ruling, they literally had reporters on the steps skipping around in the ruling, trying to figure out who won. ON LIVE TV. They looked like idiots.
"Uh... so it says here... uh... Well justice... uh... scalia says 'the decision in this case came down to whether or not the evi'... no wait, that's not it. Um... well Mark, as you can see, we have not had time to read the ruling in depth. I hear my colleagues from the Fox news network cheering so that would indicate a Bush victory. No, I'm sorry, that was actually a fraternity from Georgetown drinking from what appear to be brown bags... Ooh, maybe the last page has a summary... no, I don't know what those words mean.... We're going to have to get back to you..."
On live TV. I and most of america really wanted to know what the ruling was, but we could have waited 5 minutes for you to skim it and get the gist of it before fumbling around live.
And it's not just because journalists often have egg on their faces when they report on things before they know what it is they're reporting on. The important points in a news story get lost in the chaos, cutting from story to story, cutting from a speech by someone who might know something to go live to something that's "breaking" only to find out, no, wait, that McCain supporter wasn't actually attacked by an Obama supporter who carved a B into her face, she did that herself.
Sure it's breaking news, but ultimately, whatever they cut away from to cover that, was likely of much greater importance.
If you're watching the race that closely, you're going to get all the unimportant fluff crap and miss understanding the larger picture.
Re:fellow human beings? (Score:3, Insightful)
When given the choice of sitting on or drinking your duff, always drink it.
Old school (Score:5, Insightful)
Miro? Laptops? Blackberry? Xbox? You probably have a bigger electromagnetic footprint than the power lines in my backyard...
Do you really need all that Inspector Gadget weaponry? Why don't you coze up with an old AM radio, a bottle of gin and a beat-up deck of cards which has the perfect texture to play Solitaire in a dimly lighted living room? And a simple sheet where you strike or circle states as they are being called officially?
Do you really see any value in being the first to send a twitter to your pals about such or such result, while everybody on Earth and beyond will be completely aware of the information in a matter of minutes or hours? There is no scoop on election night, only an annoying chase to be first to know.
You want a real scoop? Here is one: while Obama is way up in polls, McCain will be the next president. Because the people that were supposed to vote for Obama were too busy subscribing to RSS feeds and setting up gamma on their webcam so they would be ready to upload their comments on youtube, and they neglected to go on and vote. While the good ol' God fearing folks were first in line at the booth and spent the election night sipping gin and playing Solitaire. That's exactly how Le Pen got so far in the French elections a few years back - not enough people casting their vote because the polls were on their side.
There is just too much gadgets people. Time to pull a few plugs and get in touch with reality, where elections are won by people who get the most votes, not people who get the most Digg or website hits.
Re:High Definition!! (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Fox News is all you need. (Score:4, Insightful)
You mean like in 2000 when the rest of the media declared gore the winner in FL an hour before the polls closed due to time zone problems? (i.e. an apparently institutional inability to .. subtract...)
Re:Nah (Score:4, Insightful)
Too bad they're all in Iraq.
* Please let no riots happen!
There shouldn't be riots if Obama wins, or if McCain wins fairly. If there's another 2000 situation and McCain wins a crooked election, then there probably SHOULD be riots. When you take away the fundamental right to vote then there aren't that many other alternatives.
Masturbate (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Best listening in UK? (Score:3, Insightful)
For some reason I am REALLY engergised by these US elections. I am UK resident and full time worker.
Well, then you're an idiot. It's a choice between the Nazi traitor McCain and the other traitor who also voted for the "let the government spy on everyone, constitution be damned" act.
Either way, fascism wins and America pisses on the graves of all of our WW2 vets. The sick part is some of them are still alive knowing they'll be resting in the piss of their nation in a big fuck you to their sacrifice.
Re:Fox News is all you need. (Score:3, Insightful)
I'd like to have a webcam in your home, so I could see you swallow your tongue if he doesn't win.
Sure, he may, and it seems like he's ahead in the polls. But the smugness of the Left is fairly sickening. I don't recall the whacky Right being that smug last election when Bush won somewhat comfortably.
Re:So really... (Score:3, Insightful)
Oh I forgot we're supposed to have an irrational hatred for anyone that says anything possibly construed as positive about the media. Need my "nerd badge"?
Whether he grabs a thousand news feeds, or some "news" network does it, he's going to end up with an identical set of information. So they can do it *for* him.
Re:viral marketing (Score:3, Insightful)
Wait. Everybody knows you ... so you have to stay on the QT? Doesn't one usually "stay on the QT" when one is doing something sort of crooked? If you're not advertising, as you claim, what exactly is your motive?
Re:So really... (Score:2, Insightful)
Well that's not really fair to the left. There are loonies on both sides. That'd be like saying someone like Limbaugh is giving us "high-brow, thoughtful political discourse that the intellects from the __right__ are so famous for". Don't get me wrong, it was a terrible post, but don't judge the either side by a few morons.
glass houses, stones, and all that (Score:4, Insightful)
Then you have selective memory. I'm not blaming you, per se, nor am I saying that this is a right-wing phenomenon. People seem to have an inability to see their own faults, or those of those in their group, compared to faults of those who are less like them. To see right-wingers who consider themselves the only REAL patriots, the only REAL Christians, and the only REAL Republicans accuse others of smugness and hubris always serves to raise my eyebrows a bit. I see this stuff every single day, and I'm not all that leftish. If you don't think that Coulter and Limbaugh count as smug, you might want to have your meter re-calibrated.
The problem is, in any population of any size, you're going to have idiots, jerks, charlatans, attention whores, etc. This applies to all factions, groups, subcultures, religions, political groups, everything. Human frailty and evil runs pretty evenly across the gamut. But we have a tendency to take these normal outliers to be the norm when it comes to groups to which we don't belong, while we're blind to the same types of individuals in our own group. It's a pretty sad phenomenon.
Suggestion... (Score:3, Insightful)
- Go to http://videothevote.org/resources [videothevote.org] and get the .pdf or .html version of the "Guidelines for Election Day Conduct" text.
- Print it out like you would a poster-flyer on a single sheet of paper, with "Video the Vote" clearly visible.
- Then take the sections 3 (Get Permission before You Film) and 8 (Enter Polls with Authorization), enlarge them (a photocopy machine and some cutting/pasting tools should do) and stick them right next to the full text.
- Copy the entire set (both texts) on colored paper (you can do the red-white-blue version if you feel like it) and place them at the locations where they are easily noticeable.
- Also, have a printout of the law you mentioned earlier, that regulates filming/photo rules at the poles.
Re:Hints (Score:3, Insightful)
Its interesting how exit polling is so well-developed that significant divergence in actual results from exit polling is evidence of election fraud when discovered in monitored elections, but when it happens in US elections, it is assumed that there is something wrong with the polling, not the election itself.