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There was rather a lot of coverage in Ireland of that election business of yours, America.

Most stations on television had live coverage from midnight (6pm KC time) onwards. The national independent station TV3 choose to stream CNN.

Briefly I was tempted by Sky News, but being Murdoch’s baby it was too in bed with Fox News to give fair & balanced coverage (see what I did there?) Basically I didn’t like it being too linked in to how Fox were calling things. The other channels were all looking at several sources including different US networks.

I flicked around a bit but settled on the BBC. Like RTE it had a conveyor belt of guests appearing on its panel with almost everyone being quite civilised, rather than continuing the electioneering. Only Bush’s one time nominee for Ambassador to the UN, John Bolton, was aggressive and ungracious in the face of a defeat for his party.

Bolton aside there was some good guests from both sides, displaying a freedom of not having to campaign for their party’s representative and being fairy analytical. Some great number crunchers wouldn’t have gone astray though, and we were treated to some predictable theatrics from Christopher Hitchens and Gore Vidal.

A surprise to me was to see Ted Koppel as a BBC panelist, and he stayed for a long time enjoying some political banter with a former Bush Press Secretary.

David Dimbleby as host did a good job though at times the coverage seemed a bit slight, particularly in the graphics department. And the live reports from around the US were largely hit and miss, with British celebrities being trotted out in Times Square to one’s great benefit, but against that some of the interviews with voters in Atlanta were insightful and dignified.

The Irish online community, like the rest of the world, followed and commented on Twitter (see special Election 08 page, RTE), and Scribble Live.

All the continents of the world discussing this single event at the same time was probably Twitter’s finest moment.

Amid all the Irish coverage I only heard very limited discussion of the relevance of the candidates policies to Irish affairs, with a small number of people making the case that McCain would serve Ireland’s interests better than Obama would. The opinions of Niall O’Dowd in New York were duly noted on this, he being the perenial trusted representative of Irish interest in Irish-American matters.

But most Irish people, pundits and ordinary people, were more interested in their choice of who they’d like to see as the next American President based on who they thought would be better for the world, and better for the US. Irish national self-interest was largely absent.

I think it was 5am here in Ireland when I watched your President Elect give his speech. And then the sun rose. Wow, how did he do that, I wondered?

This entry was posted on Wednesday, November 5th, 2008 at 9:50 am and is filed under Miscellaneous. You can follow responses via my RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.