My son said the big board guy on CNN was really good, so I watched him for a little while. I still prefer MSNBC. No one can beat Steve Kornacki for statistics. And they are the most even-handed, refusing to call states that ever other network has called.
Yeah when I resort to streaming one of them live, it's MSNBC. I was once upon a time a fan of CNN... but mostly just because I'm old enough to remember the pre cable news days.
Those agonizing waits for news updates in any crisis --like Nixon era's Watergate scandals-- back when the best we were going to get after the evening news broadcasts were 30-second "breaking news" blips, wow... Past that it was a trip to the newsstand to pick up the Times as the bales of those fell off the trucks in the city around 9pm, or wait until 11pm.
We are so spoiled now with the cable channels, their and and newspapers' apps and websites, plus blogs and vlogs and podcasts and everyman-as-journo-with-iPhone-cam, compared to what went on before the web was even a thing.
The problem now is not paucity of info but how much of it's worth taking in. Frankly back during Watergate we were less concerned about that, even when at least some concern was warranted. In a time of high drama in current events it was only about wanting just any scrap of new information in a world when there were morning and evening newspapers, evening and late news telecasts and that was about it past maybe some hourly five minute radio news summaries.
I have a lot of those "where were you when you heard" moments related to the unfoldings of events in the Watergate era. Can even remember the decor in various venues or my own clothing of the moment when this or that shocking revelation came into a room off a radio or TV back then. How circuit-busy signals radiated from everywhere to everywhere else on the evening of the so-called Saturday Night Massacre when it seemed like the government itself was falling.
Now I glance at the pile of notifications on an iPhone in the morning and roll eyes and go make my coffee. No clue what I was doing or wearing whenever the House finally impeached Trump.
But I'm going to remember the surprises of some of these 21st century American elections for the rest of my life, and as far as 2020 goes I will remain fond of Kornacki's energy and later rounds of 'splaining Pennsylvania's outstanding votes on MSNBC. It's not enough for me to buy another TV set, but the website finally picked up a bookmark in my browser.