Vote USA 2004

After today, I'm sure that BBC World/News 24 will back off of the "big" coverage of the remaining primaries - with last night's victories (10 states, including the ones with the most delegates: California & New York). I'm sure you'll get some kind of wind with the Texas primary next week (March 9).

The next really large bit of coverage you'll get will be with the party conventions - the Democratic one is in Boston July 26-29; the Republican convention is in New York City August 30-September 2.

The big speculation will be the Vice Presedential running mate selections. John Edwards has indicated that he would not be interested in joining the John Kerry ticket; there is speculation that Dick Cheney might decline to remain Vice President under a second Bush Administration, and that a new running mate might be chosen at the convention in New York.

In the midst of the Republican Convention, CNN is planning on opening their new NYC studios at Columbus Circle, so I'm sure they'll have plenty of new toys to show off at that point.

Not saying ignore Super Tuesday, just dont keep going on about it from now till november. Cover Super Tuesday as you would a local bi-election here, then not go on about it with special graphics etc until November.

I for one dont give a rats a*se about the stupid US elections. I just hope Bush gets the Boot!

You obviously don't understand how the process works, Martin.

Networks are not going to "go on about it [Super Tuesday]... until November". They would run out of things to say very quickly. Super Tuesday is just one crucial part of a process to decide who will face Bush.

Campaigning for the election itself will continue until the final vote in the final state is cast, and the media will no doubt cover that.

Your argument of "I don't care... but I hope that Bush gets kicked out" is not only contradictory, but irritatingly childish.

I am just objecting to the view that every part of the US Election process and campaign should be covered any differently to normal news. And that special coverage is not required.

And yes the USA are a bigger political power, but I personally am not interested in Congress, or any other part of American Politics which does not affect the UK or me personally.

All I want from this November's Presidential elections, is the outing of Bush. I believe Kerry is a more stable person, and I should very much like him as President, over George W Bush!

Nearly every aspect of US policy has a knock on effect for the UK and the rest of the world. Iraq, anyone?

They're not as different as you might like to think. But what would you know?

And you know more than I? Just because I am disinterested, doesnt mean I dont have a clue. I just dislike american culture, and american politics.

I shall only watch coverage of the elections to see any new graphics, and to see if Bush is voted out of the White House.

Yes, yes I do.

But to be fair, thats really not much of a claim.

Now lets get back on topic.

I'm one of the people who thinks far too much American news gets into the running order of UK news channels and programmes, but you are right about the US presidential elections, they are far too important to ignore...except for the ITV News Channel of course, which was the only UK news channel not to cover the results; it didn't even flash them up on astons, they just did what they always do, repeating the ITV News with Trevor McDonald every 30 minutes interspersed with live news summaries (even they didn't cover the results IIRC).

Martin, it's always been the case that the primaries season is covered by UK news channels and programmes around this time, in fact is starts at the beginning of the year. It is considered important also, that BBC ONE has through the night coverage on the actual general election vote for the presidency in November, from their Washington studio.

I would also think it is useful for trying out new ideas in relaying information and statistics through graphics, I suspect they wil have Peter Snow on like they did for the 2000 US elections, and they will use the opportunity to trial ideas for graphics etc. for the next UK general election, which will probably be in May 2005 (based on the fact that the resourceful Sun says it is, and the fact that council elections are scheduled for then, usually they combine the parliamentary and council polls to avoid annoying voters).

I dont object to covering the Presidential Elections. Only a fool would not think that important.

But I do think its a bit soon to start rolling out the special coverage and graphical systems.

We only have short campaigns with our General Election, and so special continuous coverage is required. But for a campaign so long, should any special effort go to covering it on the same scale as our elections... No is what I say.

Super Tuesday and other key dates on the campaign trail should only be given coverage on the scale of a by-election IMO.

I'd probably agree with you if there was going to be blanket coverage of the campaign from now until November, but that really isn't the case. Super Tuesday was an important date in the political calendar, so that got a lot of coverage, but things will obviously quieten down a bit until the next big event.

Remember that America is a big country, and candidates have to cover a lot of ground geographically. Getting their message out via tv isn't enough - they have to visit the states and press the flesh. So a campaign as short as the UK one wouldn't allow enough time to get out and about.

And, to be honest, this campaign really isn't getting an excessive amount of coverage as far as the average UK viewer is concerned. The only terrestrial coverage of the Super Tuesday results was on the overnight News 24 simulcast on BBC1 (with the key word being 'overnight' - if it had been happening during the day, N24 and Sky wouldn't have given it nearly so much attention), ITV News Channel didn't cover it at all, and the only channels to cover it in a glitzy, all-out way were Fox and CNN, and I think we can let them off for that, seeing as they're US news channels!

Not sure I follow you here, Mark.

You're saying that had Super Tuesday results come out at 2 in the afternoon UK time, that the UK networks would have paid less attention to it?

Can't see how that makes sense, to be honest. If anything, I imagine there would have been more coverage of it had networks in the UK being fully resourced at the time of results.

Well, it's only speculation, but yes, that's pretty much what I expect would happen. I'm sure they'd have covered the results - no doubt in Breaking News mode - but the news agenda would be much busier at that time of day, so the UK news channels probably wouldn't have provided as much in-depth analysis and discussion, and would have juggled the coverage with other stories/events.

That said, the coverage might well have been a bit slicker and flashier if the daytime teams were at the helm. But I'm pretty sure there wouldn't have been so much of it.