Shots Across The Bow

Back at the KNS

My secret plan has worked!

By holding back on all the dirt I picked up on my last trip, (a trick I picked up from Eason Jordan at CNN, by the way) the Knoxville News Sentinel has allowed me back into their newsroom to cover them covering election night.

Little do they know what they have coming....

Heh. (To coin a phrase.)

Anyway, I'll be here for most of the night, until things stop happening or they throw me out, so stay tuned.

5:11PM

Just got out of the 4:30 meeting which set the table for tomorrow's paper. The general feeling here is that Corker will win, the Dems will take the house, the Reps will keep the Senate, the marriage amendment will pass, and that Campbell will probably win, but it's really too close to tell. (Disclaimer: These are not poll results, and nobody said these things specifically. It's just the impression I got as they discussed how to layout tomorrow's paper.) Most of the discussion centered on where to put each story, how much space was needed, and possible changes needed if things went differently than expected.

In non-election related news, they briefly discussed the situation with the Vols, where Fulmer suspended the players involved in Saturday's incident. Leaving aside the question of whether Fulmer should have suspended the entire defensive secondary for their poor play on the last drive, it was mentioned that it seems that the UT Sports department thinks slugging a football player (half a game suspension for Foster) is less serious than talking to one without permission (two week suspension for Dave Hooker).

6:13 PM

One interesting thing is that according to the folks here, there have been no reports of major voting irregularities, other than the usual long lines. I heard reports of problems in Memphis from Fox News, including Harold Ford complaining about Diebold early this morning. KNS blogger Michael Silence noted reports yesterday of problems in Memphis including missing smart cards in Shelby County.

Then again, maybe reports of voting irregularities are no longer considered irregular.

7:30PM

I'm about to go on a trip with Jigsha Desai to the closest precicnt to get some ideas of how last minute voting is going, as well as a quick stop by both the Republican and Democrat strongholds to get a taste of the moods there. Should be interesting.

9:04PM

BAck from the polling place at West High School. The voting numbers were pretty interesting. Just over 300 people voted there and there was a line of people about 15 deep when we walked in just at 8PM. While the workers were waiting for the last minute arrivals to cast their ballots, I took the opportunity to talk to a couple of them. One gentleman told me that voting had been steady at the High School, ad that he could remember times a few years ago when they might only get 13 votes or so during a mid term election.

Turnout was significantly better than that tonight.

AS for the issues on the ballot, Harold Ford carried the precinct, the Marriage amendment passed, the tax break for seniors passed, and Bredesen won handily. Looking at the latest results from Fox, it looks like the Marriage Amendment will be an easy winner, just like Bredesen. The Ford Corker race is much tighter, but Corker is in the lead right now.

9:15PM

Fox just called the race in Connecticut for Lieberman. That's what happens when you let the zealots pick the candidates.

12:06

We just got back from touring the two campaign headquarters. Quick impressions:
The Republicans were trying to sound upbeat, but the strain seemed clear. The party was held in a smallish room, and aside from a victory speech from Stacy Campfield, the atmosphere seemed a bit grim.

The democrats by contrast were jovial, apparently confident that they would be getting good news tonight. And they weren't disappointed. Even though Schree Pettigrew lost her race, her concession speech was mainly upbeat, although I missed the ritual congratulations to the winner.

The contrasts between the two rooms were interesting.

• The Reps watched Fox. The Dems watched CNN
  
• The Reps seemed stiff andd stodgy, wearing suits and ties. The Dems were relaxed and partying, including one girl who wore a T-shirt covered in Pettigrew stickers.
  
• The Reps had no music to speak of. The Dems had a guitar player/singer who kept the energy up through the evening.
  
• The kids in both parties emulated their elders. The young Reps were dressed in dark blue blazers and ties. The young Dems were dressed for fun.

12:25AM

AP wire projects that Corker will win in Tennessee. That was the last major piece to the puzzle, and the newsroom is in high gear.

Or rather, what's left of the newsroom.

Tom Chester's voice called out the results and the few people left to finalize the paper began working rapidly. According to the 4:30 budget, the 4 star edition of the paper closed out at Midnight, so the earliest run would not have the Corker win, but would have the Dem takeover of the house. The folks left here are scrambling to reset the 5 star edition to include the Corker win on the front page.

12:41AM

Random thoughts as I finish up.

• Harry Tindell was just finishing his speech at the exact moment that CNN called the House for the Dems. The screen was behind him, so he wasn't aware that the burst of applause and cheering was for CNN, not for him.
• When we went to the polling station, all of the workers there were older, except for one youngster who operated the voting machine. Why aren't there more people my age involved in running an election?
• By the way, those poll workers we talked to worked the entire day, from 7 AM until the last vote was cast and the voting reports run and the machines broken down. At West High School, the last person in line voted at 8:35. I'm certain that there were people in other polling stations who worked much later.

  That's a long workday when you're 43, much less 63.
  

• It appears that Heath Shular has finally found a professional game he can win, as opposed to football.
  
• The Dems are jubilant about taking control of the House, but I wonder how effective they will be. They ran way to the right in order to win the majority, and many of those newly won seats could easily vote the Republican way on some issues. Also, if all these newly elected moderates vote left instead of center, what will happen in 2008?

It's been very interesting following the coverage of the election from the KNS. It wasn't the tense, nail biting spectacle I thought it would be. In fact, other than the deadline pressure, it really seemed to be like every other story. There was no sense of victory in the newsroom over the Dem takeover of the House, and the reporters I observed in the field, print and TV, all remained aloof from the celebrations. Whatever their private feelings may have been, and there were some who shared them with me, their work remained professional.

And while I can't generalize about all papers based on spending a few hours at one of them, what I've seen here tends to confirm what I thought all along. Sure, many if not most reporters vote democrat. And sure, most papers are owned by corporations and run by boards that may never have been in the same room as a Democrat. But the only bias I saw at work at the KNS was the desire to make a dollar. They're in business to make money, simple as that, and based on that, they are going to give us what we are willing to pay for. If we want to pay for quality news, they'll give us that. If all we want to pay for is dirty laundry and gossip, they'll give us that as well.

And that's all I have to say about that.

Thanks to Jack McElroy, Jack Lail, Tom Chester, Erin Chapin, Jigsha Desai, and all the other folks at the KNS who let an amateur tag along and satisfy his curiosity. By the way, this isn't part of the series I promised. The second part of that will come out tomorrow.

12:55AM

Final update. As I was typing up those last remarks, a copy of the paper, literally hot off the presses was placed on my desk. That means less than twenty minutes after Bob Corker was declared victor, the Sentinel had the headlines changes, formatted, and sent to the press, and live copies came out.

I'm impressed.

2:01AM

This really is the last update. I just got home only to find that apparently, I just went the entire evening with my fly unzipped.

Don't tell anyone, Okay?

Posted by Rich at November 7, 2006 11:59 PM | TrackBack