Election coverage

I’ve never been much into politics, so when I was first assigned to write blogs on the 2008 Presidential Campaign, I was kind of dreading it. I voted in the last election, but I admit that I was not really sure what each of the candidates stood for. I didn’t watch much of the coverage, because well… I was in high school and in all honesty I had other things to do. But now as someone who is studying journalism, I feel that it is my responsibility to watch the election coverage.

Throughout the past semester I have been watching a lot of election coverage. Not because I was assigned to do it, but because I’m actually starting to get interested in it. My first observation about the coverage, is that there is a lot of it! Stories about the candidates seem to have consumed most of the news.

When I wasn’t watching actual news coverage, I went online to ABC News most of the time to get stories. They have their own “Politics” link on the page, which directs you to all the political/ election articles. Every single story about the candidates is there to click one. I even remember one silly one about some of the republicans having a lunch or something one afternoon. Not that the story was relevant in anyway… but I guess if they needed to fill up their page and had someone to report on it, why not?

Although there are 17 candidates, as feel as though I only know things about “some” of them. I took quiz on ABC to find out my “potential” presidential candidate, and my answers best matched those of Dennis Kucinich… honestly, I don’t even know who that is.

I feel like most of the coverage followed on the frontrunners.. such as Obama, Clinton, Giuliani, and McCain. I’ve especially been seeing a lot of coverage on Obama and Oprah.. and Clinton and her husband. Maybe it’s because the two people endorsing them have a bit of a “Celebrity” status.

A lot of the coverage I’ve been seeing has to do with health care and most recently I’ve heard and seen a lot about religion. Last week the big deal in the news was Mitt Romney’s speech on him being Mormon and how that would NOT affect his presidency in any way. I’ve heard it being compared to JFK’S speech in 1960 many times.

Now after Romney’s speech many politicians are ganging up against one another on their religious positions. I’ve actually heard that the interaction between religion and politics is helping republican candidates in the race.

Not that this has to do with the coverage or anything.. but I think it’s really cool/funny/ weird that the presidential candidates have their own facebook’s and myspace’s to help get younger people interested.

So far, these are my only thoughts about the coverage on the 2008 Presidental election… I will continue to follow the news throughout the weekend, and report back with more themes and comments.