REALLY BAD ELECTION COVERAGE

Ordinarily my colleagues at the local TV stations do not share my view that often the primary is the more important election of the year…but they had been telling us for weeks how important this primary was..the Number One national Senate primary, for example.

So why did none of them devote air time to it?  And why didn’t they cover, live, the major speeches by Mitch, Matt, and Alison?

Instead, all we got was results at the bottom of the screen, and speech excerpts in regularly scheduled newscasts. (This worked to WLEX’s advantage since it has a regularly scheduled 7pm newscast and could devote as much of that half hour to returns as it wished.)

Now I went back-and-forth between the four local commercial channels, plus cn/2 and KET as best I could.  KET was the clear winner in election night coverage..when it came on at 8pm. They not only had the best lower screen graphics, but they were the only one to carry the 3 major speeches live. (They stuck with them too long, especially Mr. Bevin, who did come across as an intelligent, passionate candidate---finally.)

18’s graphics were next best, followed by 36, with 27—which tried to put too much into too small a space--- last. And none of the commercial stations I saw indicated who the incumbents were..which is vital information for viewers..and reporters, when control of the state House is at stake.

CN/2’s maps were far and away the best..when they used them. Its format of candidates pictures over an actual map of the district, with returns was very well done, and ought to be copied by the others in November. Especially, since CN/2’s future coverage is in doubt. Time Warner Cable,  is in the process of being sold to ComCast (which LFUCG should oppose) and its guiding spirit, Ryan Alessi, is leaving to pursue a master’s degree at Murray.  His comments on specific races were well done, but then the channel went off into its regular sports and weather reports, which often meant the bottom screen election numbers were mixed in with dew points and temperatures..a confusing mix!

KET had its usual analysis, actually too much of it, spending more time here than on actual returns to my liking. And poor Al Cross got sandwiched  in between the slings of a former state Democratic chairlady and the arrows of a former state Republican chairlady---while manfully holding his own.

And folks, you can NOT report—as I once saw 2200 votes and 0%!  The percent may be, probably is, less than 1% but it is NOT zero percent.

If this was our commercial stations’ tune-up for November, viewers are in big trouble.

I'm just sayin'...