Who Won Election Night in Kentucky?

The proverb, they say, is that the news is the first draft of history.


Last night we made some history: The first African-American president of the United States was elected. It was on the 11 o'clock news, the projection simultaneously on most networks when polls on the West Coast closed and California put Democratic nominee Barack Obama over the top.


With so many voices weighing in, the challenge for journalists and pundits was to distinguish themselves.


But first, said history had to happen, and it took longer than initially anticipated.


Predictions of an electoral landslide had networks openly discussing how long they would hold off in projecting the 44th president, if, say, it was obvious Obama was running away with it.


But close races in key states such as Virginia and Florida had the networks doing a lot of reporting, putting their tools to work. And there were much ballyhooed new tools, such as NBC and MSNBC's Greek-columned virtual set that put the stage for Obama's convention speech to shame, and CNN's use of holograms of correspondents in the studio.


http://www.kentucky.com/702/story/581163.html