And Obama wins the race

By: Jessica Hartgers

The voters have cast their ballots and Barack Obama has been named the next president of the United States.

Flipping through the channels of Mediacom tonight I notice that something regarding the election is on almost every channel, as it should be. However, the way each station covered and broadcast their production was different from other stations.

Early on in the night, the stories focused mainly on which candidate was winning each state, and the stations were very similar at this point. Then the range of topics started to differ. Some stations talked about each age group and the candidate that they picked for president. Others focused on a world scale and showed people of Kenya surrounding televisions to see who America voted for to be our next president. A couple other stations talked with elderly voters and all the changes they have seen in their life time. Simpson's own, Professor Epperson appeared on a local station as the political analysis to answer questions regarding the election.

My point here is that all of the stations were essentially covering the same story, just taking their own special angle to the topic, hoping to win viewers time.

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The election does not involve sports.

By: Jessica Hamell

I was watching a football game last night on ESPN and for the half time show they played interview from Obama and McCain. I know by doing this the sports news channel was affecting many people who hadn’t yet decided what they wanted. Their web-site also has a link to ABC so you can go straight to election stuff. Is it necessary for a sports channel to play stuff about the election?

Later last night on E!, a channel that follows news about celebrities was tell people to vote and what they thought about Obama. MTV does the same thing with their “Choose or Lose” campaign. A channel that normally focuses on music and news about music.

Watching news about sports is an escape for people. I know this election is very important but news channels need to stick to what they do best. If you are good at covering sports or celebrities that you should stick with that. We have gotten enough news about the election everyday for pretty much the past year. We don’t need even more when we are trying to relax.

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Playoffs in D-I

By: Gabe Gilson

The election has come and gone. As far as I’m concerned college football is still here.

Every year about this time, teams are getting close to the end of their seasons and some of these teams may be undefeated. Because of the current BCS situation, not all teams will get a chance to play for the national title. Right now, five teams out of the 119 in D-I college football are undefeated. This coming with three to four games left for most teams.

Every year about this time, sports writers all over the nation are begging for a playoff. Pat Forde in his weekly column, Forde Yard Dash, has proposed a playoff for this year that would send eight teams into a three-round playoff to determine the national champion. Every other level of college football determines a winner by the playoff system, why not D-I?

Every year about this time, fans and sports writers both have to come to the realization that this is not going to happen this year. In 2003, when the University of Auburn was snubbed out of the national championship game because of three undefeated teams at the end of the year, Tiger fans, coaches and players all were in a state of disbelief and anyone that knows anything about college football knows that it was unfair. Unfair yes, but with the current situation at place, it could end up happening to a team this year.

I can see how a playoff would be totally beyond exciting. Forde proposed games and matchups that made my mouth water. However, I do not see this ever happening and I can tell right now that it will just be a repeat of previous years for years to come. The BCS is not always a fair system but with the amount of money that bowl games make, there is no way that they will be leaving us anytime soon. As far as I’m concerned, every sports writer in America needs to focus on something else then the proposition of a playoff because it is a long way from happening.

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Higher turnout of voters in Iowa

By: Erin Floro

Iowans set a record high Tuesday to vote in the Presidential Election 2008.  An increase of 16 percent of Iowans voted from the last record in 2004.  Over 534,000 Iowans returned absentee ballots this year.

Iowa shows to be more Democratic than Republican in this election favoring Senator Barack Obama. There was an increase of 27 percent in absentee ballots returned by Democrats than in 2004.  For the Republican party there was only a 9 percent increase.

The media really attracted people to vote this election.  Over 2 million voters were registered in Iowa compared to 1.5 million in 2004.  There were substantially more newspapers across the country that endorsed Obama over John McCain and I wonder if that played a part in people's decisions.

The Democratic party campaigned well in Iowa and got many first-time voters.  American citizens were well informed about this historic election.

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What people want to read

By Kellie Green

In class the other day we had a discussion about what more people would rather read in newspapers. The idea started when we got on the discussion about some articles that were put in The Simpsonian a few years ago.

I began to think more on it and as I was going through newspapers like The New York Times and The Des Moines Register I began to see that each one has more of an audience that they are directing their stories to.

The New York Times in my opinion tends to lead to more of a liberal audience. I am just basing this on what I have seen. For example, the paper tends to be more focused on Barack Obama and the support he is getting then the support that John McCain is getting.

Journalist can not be biased but at times they are at times by what their newspapers want printed. If a paper is wanting stories about Obama, for example, then the journalist might have to lead more to being biased for him.

Papers write for their audiences. The Simpsonian writes for college students and what they are wanting to read. The articles might be a little outrageous but that is because more students want to read outrageous stories.

A newspaper may strive to not be biased but they some what are. They write for their audience members and anything their audience wants to read about.

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Scary future

By: Lexie Hagerty

On NPR's website, I read a small paragraph about the future of the T.V. once this election is over.

I have never really thought about it before, but the election is a great revenue for T.V. stations and once the election is over, that revenue won't be there. Of course, the economic downturn has a lot to do with future downturn.

This is a very scary subject to me. As a college student, I want there to be more jobs available once I graduate. I don't want the economy to downturn and leave me in the dirt.

However, everyone keeps telling me that it will bounce back and everything will be all right by the time I graduate in three years. The way I see it, though, is if a popular, entertaining business like a television show can't survive in this economy, then there is definately no hope for me in the business world.

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