I have never felt so relieved, overjoyed and excited over an
election outcome in my 26 years. Even after Clinton took the
ticket in 1992, when I also didn’t vote Republican, I was not
nearly as pumped for change as I am now.
I sat watching the polls with friends. We talked about how
what we were seeing on TV was one of those moments that
will remain forever etched in memory and history.
Where were you when Kennedy was shot? When Neil
Armstrong walked on the moon. Where were you on 9/11?
And finally, when President-elect Barack Obama gave his “Yes
We Can” speech.
His words rang as loud and clear as Rev. Martin Luther King
Jr.’s “I Have a Dream.”
I am beside myself with happiness. I have never liked socialistic
policies, I thought that trickle-down and capitalism
would keep the nation strong. But, for the past eight years, I
saw it wasn’t working. This country needed the change
Obama believes in. His influence will change the country’s
outlook and perspective, nationally and across the seas. His
beliefs will repair the failed policies of small government. It’s
time to take care of a bruised America and rebuild us to
Revolutionary glory.
That said, I also peered into the future of my chosen career.
Maybe it was because I was sipping on Sam Adams, maybe it’s
because my hyper-tendencies had me peering into the background
of the news stations; I saw through all the backdrops
into a never-ending sea of cubicles filled with reporters gathering
the facts that would be read by the likes of Diane Sawyer
and Charlie Gibson and Katie Couric and Brian Williams.
I could see the typing on keyboards, following the wire and
googling facts. I could see the myriad of phone calls.
I could see the webcasts and blogs and vlogs and commentaries
and editorials being pounded out by the second.
I noticed the graphic work on NBC, MSNBC, CNN, Fox
News and what I thought was most comprehensible, ABC
News.
Every fact and detail was littered about the screen to follow
the latest polls and I imagined a 70s-style, smoke-filled newsroom,
with reporters filling in the blanks as fast, and accurately
as possible.
It was here where certain news stations lost me. The complicated
screen shots and graphics and flashes of logos and slogans
were over-complicated, and often lacked the listings of
the number of Electoral Votes per state.
The epic election and landslide victory was all the rage
across cable channels, but regular programming, without
news scrolls, filled the majority of channels. Episodes of
“House” and “Family Guy” probably received as many viewers
as usual.
Wednesday morning I came into the newsroom with bagels
and coffee and the Courier Times, Philadelphia Inquirer and
New York Times. I waited for my designated election
reporters to come in and gather stories and quotes from, what
I assumed, citizens as enthusiastic as myself.
I don’t understand how a young, vibrant new president with
a message of hope and change couldn’t capture the young voters,
the apathetic, the lethargic, the stupid masses that believe
they don’t mean anything in the world.
This election meant that everyone and anyone who has a
vote, has a voice.
Yet, incoming complaint after incoming complaint from
reporters put me into a stupor; no one cared, no one knew anything
but hype and propaganda, no one had been listening.
I told them to go out and not lose momentum. I told the
reporters to gather the news and the applause and the anger of
the Bucks community.
I waited and grew as edgy as I had been at 10 p.m. on
Election Night. Where were the people who cared? I have
expressed before my distaste for the slackers, the tardy and the
apathetic. I get dozens of e-mails from readers who harp that
“We’re not all hicks and idiots,” but where are you among the
masses?
Obama’s message was “Yes We Can.” It takes a nation to
rebuild, and America elected a leader of change. But “we” –
meaning you and me – are part of the process.