Stranger in a Strange Land: Watching Election Night on Fox
I was stuck at work on this Election Night. All the TV’s which are usually tuned to sports of some kind, were tuned in to Fox News Presidential election
coverage. I don’t watch Fox because I get tired of their partisan bickering. Generally I listen to, or watch the BBC, NPR and CNN, for an attempt at some even handed media reporting, despite others cries of liberal bias. I don’t care for a whole lot of commentary with my news.
Here’s what I found amusing as the results began to come in. Every time a state was declared for Romney, the graphics would come alive in big, bold maps with thick lines and dense over saturated colors. Clunky, important and self aggrandizing fonts of the states name and the numbers would appear, accompanying the map. And whenever Obama took a state, there would be nothing. The number in the lower right hand corner would change and someone would state that, “Obama has taken Delaware” with the same sort of voice to say, “Granma shouldn’t have had re-fried beans for lunch.”
It went on and on like this. When it looked like Romney would take Florida, the map went up, and then disappeared. And suddenly, everything took a grim turn. Once Ohio was called for the President, collectively the staff at Fox looked liked they ‘d all just been forced to swallow live bugs. Karl Rove urged not to rush into anything, but after a while when the numbers wouldn’t magically change, and Rove was silently cursing the money he’d spent on both Santero priest and sacrifice, those at Fox conceded that indeed the President of the United States had been re-elected.
I have this set of Soviet Era propaganda video tapes about the Soviet Union ‘s experience during World War II. And the most interesting spin to my ears, is the way the Russians, here at least, defeated Germany and Italy and freed the world from the tyranny of Hitler and fascism, single-handedly. There is the briefest mention of Great Britain, the US, and other Allied forces involvement and that’s quietly muttered somewhere in the middle, and in passing. I understand these tapes were originally made for a native audience, who were expected to never question what they were told by the government, ever. They are to me, a fascinating document and a window on a heady and complicated time. It becomes pretty obvious when you watch them side by side the producers from Fox News studied at the same school of Television Production as the Soviets did.