It's been the weekend for the political junkies on CNN. Ballot Bowl 2008 - Round 2 - this time Live from New Hampshire.
Saturday, John King anchored 4 hours of live programming that featured clips of the candidates (live at times) campaigning in New Hampshire. What could be more picturesque than snow covered New Hampshire in January?
CNN had correspondents reporting from across the state including Mary Snow, Suzanne Malveaux, Jessica Yellin, Bill Schneider, Dana Bash and Dan Lothian.
I happen to live in one of those small states that the candidates rarely visit. So, getting to hear more than just a 15 second sound bite from their campaign speeches appeals to me.
Sunday, John King was back again to anchor another 4 hours from New Hampshire. There were more campaign stops for the CNN correspondents to cover as the clock counts down to Tuesday's primary.
If you turned into CNN between 7:00pm ET and 11:30pm ET Sunday night, you might have wondered if you're cable company had rearranged their channels. CNN rebroadcast the debates that had aired on ABC on Saturday night.
Charlie Gibson moderated the ABC Facebook WMUR debates. Unlike previous debates, this one offered the candidates the opportunity to discuss the topics between themselves, not just answer the questions posed by the moderator. One other unique feature of this debate was that both Republicans and Democrats were debating on the same stage, the same night. Between the two debates as the Republican candidates were leaving the stage and the Democrats where entering, Charlie Gibson asked all the candidates to remain on stage and greet one another. It was an interesting moment seeing all 10 candidates being "nice" to one another.
John King anchored CNN's coverage, but the debates aired unedited.
Mystery Journalist
This week's Mystery Journalist was Ted Rowlands.
One last note tonight, MediaBistro's FishbowlDC reported on Friday that John King and Dana Bash were engaged. We haven't gotten any official confirmation of this, but we did notice that Dana Bash was wearing a ring on Sunday.
Those of at All Things CNN would like to offer the couple our congratulations and best wishes on this exciting news.
I really like Ballot Bowl. I can not always
ReplyDeletebe near a computer to watch on CNN.com.
Maybe this is a sneak peek of what is to
come since Jon Klein said something about
this sort of thing on Reliable Sources.
I hope CNN really breaks the mole this
2008. Like documentaries with the
candidates talking with you about their
lives and where they stand on the issues
in their own words. Somehow I think they
would enjoy the free air time. Also politics
and pop culture.Since John Roberts was
omce a VJ who better to explain to us
the meaning behind some of the biggest
politcal songs and what the artist meant
to express with these songs. Like
Dylan and others. I've been researcfhing
the matter and discovered that there
were plenty of songs about Nixon in the
70's done by Curtis Mayfield, Stevie
Wonder, Gil Scot Heron and even a
song from the 80's called The Message.
Also Public Enemy Buffalo Springfiled,
Creedemce Clearwater Revival and countlesss
others from the sixties. Even the boss got
politcal with Born in the USA.
I really enjoyed the Ballot Bowl. I didn't get to watch much of the first one because it was on during the holidays but I think it is a terrific idea to just show clips of what the candidates are saying. You can see a lot of back peddling while watching it. I do anyways.
ReplyDeleteCongrats to John and Dana!!!